eCommerce Company Wish Files Paperwork To Go Public

Wish, the online marketplace, has confidentially filed paperwork to go public with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the San Francisco-based company announced Monday (Aug. 31) in a press release.

The company submitted a draft registration statement. After the SEC reviews the document, Wish could move forward with an initial public offering (IPO) or a direct listing, Reuters reported.

The company did not provide financial details or reveal how many shares it would sell or at what price. Filing confidentially allows a company to keep its financials private until 15 days prior to the actual offering to prevent competitors from gaining more detailed knowledge of their operations.

Wish’s filing follows a number of startups, including Snowflake, Palantir Technologies and Asana, seeking opportunities amid a crush of investors, Reuters reported.

The filing comes on the heels of the popular mobile shopping app raising $300 million in a recent Series H funding round. Led by General Atlantic, a New York growth equity firm, the round boosted Wish’s valuation to $11.2 billion.

Wish was founded a decade ago by former Yahoo developer Danny Zhang and ex-Google executive Peter Szulczewski. Today, Wish boasts customers in more than 100 countries and sells 3 million products daily on its eCommerce platform, according to the company’s website.

Wish goes head-to-head against Amazon but offers deeply discounted products made in China. CNBC reported Wish is targeted to shoppers who might not be able to afford $119 a year for Amazon Prime.

However, while Wish has built a large marketplace of goods, the company has faced complaints from its customers who allege the site hosts questionable merchants and poor quality products, CNBC reported.

In 2018, Wish added ShippingEasy to the marketplace’s shopping app which allows customers to track orders and print shipping labels.

“Sellers use the Wish shopping app to reach millions of worldwide consumers each day, and now they will benefit from the integration with ShippingEasy,” ShippingEasy Vice President Strategy & Business Insights Navin Kekane said at the time. “Among many other benefits, ShippingEasy’s powerful automation and two-way inventory sync[ing] through our inventory management solution will allow Wish sellers to put more hours back in their day so they can concentrate on growing their business.”