It looks like Aliso Viejo-based Buy.com Inc. is going to make it back to the public markets after all.
After filing for an initial public offering in January, online retailer Buy.com finally laid out a revised offering amount a few weeks ago.
No date has been set for the offering.
Buy.com is looking to raise as much as $54.2 million in the stock sale, down from a proposed $86 million it said it hoped to raise earlier this year.
The offering wouldn’t be a true “initial” stock sale. That’s because the online seller of CDs, DVDs, electronics and computer gear first went public in 2000 before being taken private the following year.
Buy.com went through a restructuring after going private. The company has shrunk its losses but still has some challenges to work out.
In the company’s most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Buy.com said revenue grew 14% to $82.7 million in the third quarter compared to a year earlier. That’s the same growth rate as the company posted in the second quarter, but slower than the 19% gain it recorded in the first quarter.
Seattle-based online rival Amazon.com Inc. saw its sales jump 27% to $1.9 billion in the third quarter.
The fourth quarter could be great for online retailers. Internet retail sales are expected to climb 24% during the holiday shopping season, according to Reston, Va.-based comScore Networks Inc.
Buy.com narrowed its net loss to $2.3 million in the third quarter, versus a loss of $4.1 million a year ago. But its loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization grew to $2.9 million this year, versus $2.4 million in the third quarter last year.
One potential risk for Buy.com: The company is a holdover from the tech-bubble days when it was unique just to hawk wares on the Internet.
Today, Buy.com sells the same gear that Amazon.com, CircuitCity.com and BestBuy.com are peddling.
Buy.com isn’t too diversified in the products it sells. Nearly 90% of sales come from technology and consumer electronics products, up from 81% in 2003.
Most of the offering’s proceeds will go toward working capital and possible acquisitions, Buy.com said in a filing.
Buy.com’s founder, chairman and chief executive is Scott Blum. He lives in Wyoming and owns 98% of the company’s shares.
Ramping up Raptor
An Orange County company with its sights on the networking sector recently inked a $7.7 million round of funding.
Santa Ana-based Raptor Networks Inc. received the funding through a private investment in public equity, or “pipe,” transaction, in which investors buy new shares in a private deal.
Brookstreet Securities Corp. of Irvine led the deal.
Raptor is publicly traded on the low profile over the counter bulletin board exchange. It’s not earning profits,or generating much in sales.
Raptor, which has a market value of about $37 million, posted revenue of $54,000 in 2004. Its loss was more than $20 million last year.
Chief Financial Officer Bob Van Leyen said the company is “truly a startup.” It was founded in the middle of 2003.
Funds from the stock sale will help pay operating expenses, including keeping the lights on at the company’s 11,000-square-foot facility and paying salaries for the nearly 30 employees.
But the company isn’t lacking for big ambitions.
Raptor has seven patents pending on switching technologies that go up against products from big competitors such as Cisco Systems Inc.
Van Leyen boasted that Raptor switches have better technology at a cheaper price than those sold by rivals.
Raptor’s switches are designed to handle big media applications such as video and VoIP,voice over Internet protocol. The company clusters switches together to make one big fast switch.
The chip for the company’s key switch comes from Irvine-based Broadcom Corp.
Customers include the Massachusetts Institute for Technology and Bethseda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp.
Van Leyen said the market for switches is around $15 billion annually, so Raptor needs just a piece of the market to make some decent money.
Why the Raptor moniker? Like the switches that are clustered together, dinosaurs could communicate and act together during hunts.
In other words, Van Leyen said they “were behaving as one animal.”
Thumping Thump
Oakley Inc. may not be a technology company, but the sunglasses maker’s MP3 shades are drawing some shots from the tech community.
A column penned by PC Magazine’s Jim Louderback said the Foothill Ranch-based company’s Thump sunglasses,which let users wear shades and listen to digital music files,are among the worst products of 2005.
“The poorly fitting earbuds chafe, the glasses feel flimsy, and the style is dated,” Louderback wrote. “And what happens if you want to rock out at night?”
Ouch.
I’m not sure if I’d trust a writer at a technology magazine on whether something is stylish. Still, it’s never fun to make that kind of list.
