Soon, there will be shares of BBBB listed on the Nasdaq market.
Blackboard Inc. -- which calls itself "a leading enterprise software for e-education" and is widely used by Penn faculty and students -- filed for a $75 million initial public offering last Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Blackboard issued information of the decision in a March 5 press release.
The company has not yet revealed how many shares it will sell or what their individual cost will be.
Blackboard spokesmen declined to release when this information will be available.
The IPO will primarily be handled by Credit Suisse First Boston.
Founded in 1997 by American University graduate Michael Chasen and his fraternity brother and best friend Matthew Pittinsky, the Washington D.C.-based company sells online software programs that cater to a range of schools from kindergartens to large universities.
Sixty-five percent of the company's revenues, however, come from post-secondary schools like Penn, where Blackboard is used to connect students and faculty members in "online teaching, campus commerce services and Web-enabled student services," according to the company's Web site.
Unlike many similar small technology companies at the time, Blackboard did not go public immediately, opting instead to allow only private corporations to buy company shares. America Online, Dell and Microsoft were among the companies that collectively invested over $100 million.
According to Donald Keim, a professor of Finance in the Wharton School, filing an IPO is a means of increasing capital for a company.
"The benefit of going public is that you get access to more capital," Keim said. "If you can't do it just through the company's internal operations, it's a way to get more money from outside the company through prospective stockholders."
In 2003, Blackboard Chief Executive Officer and President Chasen said in USA Today that staying private takes the pressure off a company to produce an immediate product or customer base -- two things individual investors look for in a company.
"We haven't had to worry about other overfunded companies in our space," Chasen said at the time. "We could buckle down."
The company would not comment on what circumstances have since changed. They have, however, become more stable in recent years.
Blackboard expects $92.5 million in revenue this year. The company saw a 32.3 percent sales growth in the last fiscal year despite previous difficult financial times.
In 2001 and 2002, the company lost $41.8 and $41.7 million, respectively, and had to lay off 40 employees.
Despite a $1.4 million loss last year, Blackboard is making a comeback.
Inc. Magazine listed it as the sixth fastest-growing privately held education business in the nation. The number of employees has grown by 4 percent this year.
