zulily-salesFast-growing Zulily is looking to take the IPO plunge.

The Seattle company, which sells clothes, toys and accessories for babies, kids and moms, today filed to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.

Zulily CEO Darrell Cavens
Zulily CEO Darrell Cavens

The company’s growth has been astounding since it was started by former Blue Nile executives Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon in 2009. It posted revenues of $331 million last year, up from $143 million in 2011.

The company lost $10.3 million last year, but it swung to a $2.3 million profit in the first half of 2013. It has a total accumulated deficit of $55.6 million. The company’s customer base also is growing fast, with 2.2 million active customers — defined as those who purchased at least once in the last year — as of June 30, 2013. That was up 93.1 percent over the 1.2 million active customers it had in July 2012.

Zulily would mark the latest Seattle area tech company to go public, following Tableau Software and Nanostring Technologies, both of which went public earlier this year. Zillow — whose CEO Spencer Rascoff was recently named to the board of Zulily — went public in July 2011.

Zulily is by far the youngest of the crop of Seattle area tech companies that have filed to go public in recent years. But it is also the biggest. Its staff grew from 329 in Dec. 2011 to 886 as of June of this year, with the company writing in its S-1 filing that it expects to “add a significant number of employees during the remainder of 2013.”

zulily55But revenues is where Zulily really shows its power, with annual revenue of $331 million.

By comparison, Tableau Software (market value of $4.1 billion) had revenue of $127.3 million last year, and Zillow (market value of $2.9 billion) had revenue of $116.8 million.

Zulily plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ZU.” The company, which raised $85 million last year from Andreessen Horowitz and others at a $1 billion valuation, is tightly controlled by founders Cavens and Vadon who together control just over 50 percent of the voting power. Andreessen Horowitz owns 7.3 percent, while Seattle venture capital firm Maveron controls 23.6 percent. Meritech Capital, a late-stage investor that also backed PopCap Games, owns a small percentage of the company as well.

zulily-growth44Maveron, the venture capital firm led by Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz and former investment banker Dan Levitan, appears to be the investor that is in the the best position to capitalize on an IPO. It received 94.8 million class A shares in May 2010, paying just $0.03645. By comparison, the $85 million venture round from last November, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz, was priced at $2.07.

Zulily has kept a relatively low-profile in Seattle over the years, with Cavens focusing on the insane growth rate at the company. The 40-year-old often refers to moving at “Zulily time” — a hyperspeed which has allowed it to get big fast while building a loyal following of customers.

“It’s all about running at it every single day, running very, very fast,” said Cavens at an event in Seattle last year. “It’s hard work.”

Follow-upChart: Zulily is bigger than Twitter, and grew faster over the past 3 years

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