GoPro going public with $100 million IPO filing

May 20, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC
Fortune

FORTUNE — Video camera company GoPro filed for a $100 million initial public offering late Monday.

The size of the IPO could change, as the $100 million valuation is likely a placeholder. The IPO has been in the works for months, since GoPro said in February it had submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in compliance with rules covering companies with annual revenues under $1 billion.

Founded by surfing billionaire Nick Woodman, the company’s sports-friendly video cameras first hit the market in 2004. (Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on how Woodman’s family connections helped him secure the company’s early venture capital funding.)

San Mateo, Calif.-based GoPro, whose lightweight, durable cameras can be worn or mounted to anything from a bicycle to a plane, has seen its sales and profits grow rapidly over the past few years. In 2012, the company’s $526 million in revenues more than doubled the previous year’s totals before growing again, to $985.7 million, last year. The company’s profits also jumped from $32.3 million in 2012 to $60.6 million last year.

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GoPro’s numbers dipped in this year’s first quarter, though — the company’s $235.7 million in revenue for the three months ending March 31 represented an 8% drop-off from the same period last year. In Monday’s filing, the company blamed the dip on an abnormal increase in shipments of one type of GoPro’s HERO3 cameras in last year’s first quarter that resulted from a previous production delay.

According to the company’s Monday filing, GoPro plans to use the proceeds of the IPO for “general corporate purposes,” including generating working capital and paying down a $111 million term loan. The company added: “The goal with respect to the investment of these net proceeds will be capital preservation and liquidity so that these funds are readily available to fund our operations.”

J.P. Morgan & Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Barclays (BCS) are leading a large group of underwriters that also includes Allen & Company, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Robert W. Baird & Co., MCS Capital Markets, Piper Jaffray, and Raymond James & Associates.