The Brazilian eCommerce software provider VTEX has chosen banks to handle a potential initial public offering, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
VTEX, which is backed by SoftBank Group Corp, will work with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Banco Itau BBA on a possible Nasdaq listing, sources told Bloomberg, asking to remain anonymous as they were discussing confidential information.
VTEX, “which bills itself as the world’s first and only fully integrated commercial marketplace-OMS platform,” said a decision on the IPO will depend on its shareholders, and no plans have been announced. The two banks declined to comment.
Last year, VTEX completed a $225 million funding round that put its valuation at $1.7 billion, with investors that included Tiger Global, Lone Pine Capital, Endeavour Catalyst and SoftBank.
“If the listing is successful, it would be an important landmark for SoftBank’s Latin American push,” Bloombeg notes. “The Japanese conglomerate launched a $5 billion fund to invest in the region’s startups back in 2019, and has since purchased stakes in digital lender Banco Inter SA, delivery-services firm Rappi SAS and Gympass, among others.”
Created in 2000, VTEX serves more than 3,000 online storefronts in more than 32 countries, working with companies such as Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Sony.
In an interview with PYMNTS last year, VTEX chief strategy officer and U.S. general manager Amit Shah said he expects more companies to embrace direct-to-consumer sales.
He said that a post-COVID disruption of online retail has led to more than 200 percent growth for VTEX’s D2C business and predicted the trend of helping companies build their own platforms will continue.
“We enable some of those companies to build a marketplace that’s their own, where they can sell their products but also complementary products to give that end customer more choice and more convenience,” Shah said.