Roku IPO Seeks to Raise Up to $100M

Streaming device and platform company Roku filed an S-1 Friday with the SEC, outlining plans for an IPO that aims to raise up to $100 million.

The subject of IPO rumors for years, Roku landed a $45.5 million round last year, and has raised more than $208.61 million in total, according to Crunchbase.

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The S-1 filing shed much light on Roku’s business and operations.

For the six months ended June 30, 2017, Roku raked in revenues of $199.7 million, up 23% from the prior year period. For all of 2016, it generated $398.6 million, up 25% from the $319.9 million brought in during 2015.

Roku also posted a net loss of $24.2 million in 2017 through June 30, and a gross profit of $76.5 million.

The majority of Roku’s revenue comes way of sales of streaming players, with the balance from its Platforms business, which includes advertising, subscription revenue sharing, and licensing fees from TV makers that have integrated Roku’s OS (its TV partners include RCA, TCL, Element Electronics, Hitachi America, Haier America, Sharp, and Insignia/Best Buy).  

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For the first six months of 2017, Roku player revenues reached $117.32 million, compared to $82.39 million for Platforms. For that same six-month period, player revenue represented 59% of total revenue, down 2%, while platform revenue represented 41%, growing 91% over the year-ago period.

As of June 30, 2017, Roku had cash of $70.16 million, total assets of 184.99 million, and $22.81 million of long term debt.

Roku also disclosed that it had 15.1 million active accounts by the end of Q2 2017, up from 10.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

Roku said 3.5 billion hours of content were streamed on its platform in Q2 2017, up from just 2.2 billion in the year-ago period.  Roku said its users streamed more than 6.7 billion hours on its platform in the first six months of 2017 (through June 30), a 62% rise from the six months ended June 30, 2016. 

Annual streaming hours stand at 11.9 billion for the trailing 12-month period, versus 9.4 billion for all of 2016, Roku said.

“We believe all TV content will be available through streaming,” Roku proclaimed in the S-1

Roku reported Q2 2017 ARPU of $11.22, up from ARPU of $7.20 in Q2 2016.

Regarding its growth strategy, Roku said it hinges on boosting active accounts, hours streamed, and increasing ARPU.

As of June 30, Roku had 696 full-time employees, with 395 in R&D, 165 were in sales and marketing, and 136 tied to general and administrative and operations.