Trulia has often followed in the footsteps of its larger Seattle rival, Zillow. Now, the San Francisco real estate company is hoping to ride on the coattails of Zillow’s recent IPO success. Trulia has reportedly filed for an initial public offering through a new mechanism in the JOBS Act that allows companies with less than $1 billion in revenue to file for a public offering without disclosing publicly to the SEC, Reuters reports.
JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank are reportedly advising Trulia, which is backed by venture capital firms Sequoia and Accel Partners.
Rumors of a Trulia IPO have circulated for months, and CEO Pete Flint has not been shy about his intentions to take the company public. Here’s what he told GeekWire in March 2011.
“We don’t have a great sense of urgency around being a publicly-traded company. That’s not a particular milestone that we are focused on. And we have no capital needs right now. We are really delighted with our business, and we want to avoid to many distractions. So, will we go public? I very much expect so. Is there a timeline for that? Not yet.”
Interestingly, just four months later Zillow priced its IPO at $20 per share, rocketing ahead of Trulia and not looking back. Zillow’s stock is now trading at $40 per share, and the company boasts a market value of $1.17 billion. It has used the new riches of the public offering to expand aggressively into online tools for real estate agents, and to bolster its staff both through key hires and acquisitions. The Zillow IPO, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary last Friday, is one of the best performing in the tech industry in the past two years.
Can Trulia catch up?
It’s too early to say. But, at least in March 2011, Flint expressed confidence that Trulia could outflank Zillow. “It is really just a question of time before we overtake them,” he said.
If Trulia goes public, we will have more transparency into the battle between the two online real estate companies as the they look to woo Wall Street.
Get out the popcorn, this one could be very fun to watch.
