The Vancouver online-course platform Thinkific Labs Inc. has launched plans to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange after filing a preliminary prospectus with regulators this week.
The company was founded in 2012, and helps businesses create and sell tools for online learning, including courses. The Globe and Mail first reported in January that the company was considering an initial public offering.
The move comes as the company has seen significant revenue growth. In its filing this week, Thinkific revealed its annual recurring revenue had a compound annual growth rate of 160 per cent between December, 2015, and December, 2020. Its total revenue was $21.1-million for fiscal 2020 – itself marking a year-over-year growth of 113 per cent. But it also reported a loss for the year of US$1.29-million, compared with a profit in fiscal 2019 of $291,000.
The company also said it had 24,600 paying customers at the end of last year, up 126 per cent.
“We are in the midst of a monumental power shift from institutions to entrepreneurs,” chief executive Greg Smith wrote in a letter attached to the prospectus, which was filed late Monday. “Driving this shift are tools that dramatically reduce the barriers and cost of experimentation for entrepreneurs to iterate on ideas and scale successful businesses.”
Thinkific sees its value proposition as combining business and education in this context – “a business that is built on lasting partnerships with aligned businesses,” Mr. Smith further wrote.
Though Thinkific did not specify the total it hopes to raise through its IPO, it said in the filing that it wants to boost awareness of its brand, give itself greater financial flexibility and invest in its technology, sales and marketing divisions. It’s applied for the ticker symbol THNC.
The filing comes at a moment when Canadian technology companies are flooding to public markets at the greatest rate in many years. Canadarm maker MDA Ltd. filed a prospectus to raise $500-million in an initial public offering on the TSX Monday – while Vendasta Technologies Inc., which sells digital tools such as marketing automation, customer relationship management and billing software to companies that serve small businesses, set a target price of $14 to $16 a share for its planned TSX IPO.
Thinkific said that the offering would be underwritten by the capital markets divisions of Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Last September, the company raised US$22-million in venture financing on private markets to help it fund a hiring spree. It said it was aiming to nearly triple its staff to 500 by the end of 2021 as the pandemic accelerated its growth. The round was led by longtime backer Rhino Ventures.
Thinkific said then that it had seen a 200-per-cent increase in courses created on its platform between March and September, 2020.
- With files from Sean Silcoff
Your time is valuable. Have the Top Business Headlines newsletter conveniently delivered to your inbox in the morning or evening. Sign up today.
Josh O’Kane