Etsy seeks to raise $100 million in initial public offering

Etsy, the online marketplace for arts and crafts and vintage goods, is seeking to raise $100 million in an initial public offering, the company said today. The decade-old company, founded by a carpenter named Rob Kalin, has expanded from its initial vision of a place for finding and selling handmade goods to an online storefront that now also includes mass-manufactured goods.

Etsy, which will trade on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol ETSY, makes money from listing fees and commissions on sales. The company’s revenues were $196 million last year, up 56 percent from the year before, according to the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But its losses accelerated to $15.2 million in 2014, up from $796,000 the year before. The company is run by former Yahoo executive Chad Dickerson; Kalin left the company in 2011.

There were 1.4 million people actively selling their wares on Etsy in 2014, the company reported, and 19.8 million buyers.