The $100 Million Revenue Club: LiveOps Checks Off IPO Boxes
This is an abridged summary of the article published by VentureWire discussing Millennium portfolio company LiveOps.
April 1, 2010
By: David Berry
When former eBay Inc. Chief Operating Officer Maynard Webb decided to cut short his retirement and become CEO of LiveOps Inc., he was given a simple message by the company's venture investors: Put it on track to eventually go public.
And so for the past three-plus years, the Santa Clara, Calif., company has, in a sense, been checking the many boxes that are necessary today to become a public company. LiveOps is not quite done with the process, but it is, concedes Webb and board member and Menlo Ventures' Managing Director Doug Carlisle, getting closer. Neither seem to suggest it'll be going out this year, but 2011 seems like a likely possibility for the company, which provides enterprises with an on-demand call center platform and a community of on-demand independent agents.
Among the things LiveOps has done over the past three years are:
Get in strong financial position. It last raised capital in 2007 and has no plans to raise any additional capital.
Expand its product offerings. The company began by providing online technology and independent contractors - now numbering 20,000 - to help call-center managers deal with shifting demands. More specifically, it focused on the so-called direct response industry. The company's technology platform was one of the things that "hooked" Webb. Having watched people generate income on eBay from their home, he saw LiveOps as a continuation, offering people the ability to make money when they had the time to handle calls from their home. The company has 200 customers, including Salesforce, Pizza Hut, eBay and Kodak.
Put together a strong board. James Beer, Symantec Corp.'s EVP and CFO; Todd Bradley, executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Personal Systems Group; Nanci Caldwell, who was an executive vice president and CMO of PeopleSoft Inc.; Ryan Downs, senior vice president of global operations at eBay Inc.; and OpenTable Inc. CEO Jeff Jordan joined after Webb became CEO. "I just went out to find talent that could help me fill the gaps we might have as we grow."
Compile a seasoned management team. The team includes CFO Bill Slakey who has held CFO positions with Extreme Networks Inc., Handspring Inc., SnapTrack Inc., and Tropos Networks Inc. Additionally, the company's general counsel, Rob Chestnut, as well as its executive vice president of technology and products, Jeremy King, were both, like Webb, executives with eBay.
Webb said that at some point it'll "just make sense" for the company to go public.
"We expect to go public," he said. "We don't expect it immediately. We're building a company that can last - a great enduring company."