The report comes after Yelp hired Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to lead its IPO effort last November. The company, known for its collection of user-generated reviews of local businesses, had announced its plans to go public last April. Previously, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman had said he wouldn’t consider an IPO for “several years.” Yelp also turned down a $500 million takeover bid from Google in early 2010.
Yelp's stocks will be the first on sale from a high-profile social media company in 2012. It follows a handful of others last year, most of which were considered to be disappointments. The most recent such IPO, Zynga's, fell 50 cents on its opening day to $9.50. The stock is currently trading at around $12.50, however.
How Yelp's IPO will fare remains to be seen. The company's prospectus, released last November, revealed that the company is not yet profitable, but has exhibited strong growth.
Other highlights from the prospectus:
* Yelp had 22 million reviews on its network in September, an increase of 66% over the comparable period in 2010. The average review has more than 100 words.
* The company's website got 61 million unique visitors that month, up 63% over the year-ago period.
* Five million mobile devices accessed Yelp in September.
* There are 529,000 business locations that are on Yelp, up 114%.
* The company posted $58.4 million in revenue for the first nine months of this year, up 80% over the comparable period in 2010.
* Yelp posted a net loss of $7.6 million for that period.
* The bulk of Yelp's revenues -- $40.3 million for the first nine months of 2010 -- comes from local advertising. Another $12.7 million is from brand advertising, while the remainder -- $5.4 million -- is from "other services." This includes the recently scaled back Yelp Deals offering.
* Sales and marketing comprise $38.5 million of Yelp's expenses.
