
Bill.com Files for $100M IPO - coloneltcb
https://news.crunchbase.com/news/fintech-unicorn-bill-com-files-for-100m-ipo/
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fmpwizard
Somewhat off topic but, when I simply typed the site bill.com on Firefox's
private browsing, scrolled down a bit, they show me a popup to chat and they
have my first and last name there. The same thing happened when I went on my
cell using Firefox Focus, which doesn't keep any cookies. 1\. Anyone else
seeing this? 2\. I hate it 3\. Where do they get this info from?

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bduerst
Nothing for me.

This is a Drift chat widget so they have your information stored somewhere,
probably from some interaction you had with it on a different site. They also
appear to do IP lookup as well.

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fmpwizard
Thanks, it looks like it is IP lookup, I used another phone (not mine) and
they also showed my name there.

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kbar13
ip lookup seems like a weird way to do name lookups...

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bduerst
They probably check the ISP to determine if the IP is static or not, and then
map the name if it is.

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usmannk
Important that they're aiming to _raise_ $100MM, not going public at a $100MM
valuation as I first thought. Funny how IPOing to raise capital has become
secondary to IPOing to provide liquidity in this late stage of the tech credit
cycle.

~~~
pavlov
Tech IPOs seem to be splitting into two very different tiers.

Some don't need the cash and may even do a direct listing with no capital
raise, like Spotify and Slack.

Others have such huge losses that the IPO cash is acutely needed. I'd put Lyft
and Uber in that bucket. WeWork of course is the poster child — it nearly
collapsed after the IPO was pulled and cash from public markets wasn't
forthcoming after all.

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runn1ng
WeWork is not “tech IPO” though.

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chirau
Whilst I acknowledge the technical correctness of your remark, in practice and
for most intents and purposes, WeWork is being considered as a tech IPO

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uptown
"We were incorporated in 2006 and have experienced net losses and negative
cash flows from operations since inception."

13 years of unprofitability?

~~~
barry-cotter
If you have positive return on cash invested people will be happy to keep
giving you more money for decades even if you plough all your profits back
into expansion. Amazon has had the option of returning profits for decades and
has always aimed to just barely make a profit.

> Amazon was founded in 1994, first traded publicly in 1997, and didn’t turn a
> profit until 2001.

[https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/031414/amazon-
ne...](https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/031414/amazon-never-makes-
money-no-one-cares-amzn-aapl-wag-azo.aspx)

~~~
uptown
Amazon is clearly an outlier. Let’s not equate every unprofitable company with
them.

~~~
barry-cotter
Not every company is Amazon but Bill.com is showing 57% year on year growth
this year after 71% last year, with over $35m in quarterly revenue for the
last quarter. With those kinds of numbers they can invest less in customer
acquisition and turn on the money tap any time they want.

> Bill.com reported about $35.2 million in total revenue for the third quarter
> of 2019, representing nearly 57 percent year-over-year growth compared to
> $22.4 million in total revenue for the third quarter of 2018. For context,
> Bill.com’s total revenue grew 71 percent between the third quarter of 2017
> and the third quarter of 2018. The company’s growth is slowing down, which
> isn’t unusual as companies mature.

~~~
aguyfromnb
> _With those kinds of numbers they can invest less in customer acquisition
> and turn on the money tap any time they want._

Where does this notion come from that these companies can "make money whenever
they want", but haven't done so in a decade or more? People point to Amazon as
an analogy all the time: it took Amazon about 5 years to make a profit, and
this was the early internet. Bill.com is not Amazon.com.

That's a _theory_ , a selling-point, and it comes from "Silicon Valley"
itself. In reality, the growth tends to _come from_ the customer acquisition
spend, and growth will likely cease the minute customer acquisition spending
stops. Growth is already slowing down, and this company has never made a dime.
So what value do _you_ put on it now?

Where does the idea assumption from that these companies are "putting profits
back into the company"? That money has to show up in the financials statements
as well, it's not magic.

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jackweirdy
If you have healthy free cash flow it’s up to you what you do with it.

Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders on this topic (PDF warning) —
[https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-
files/2b0b9eb6-0e9d-40f9-8...](https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-
files/2b0b9eb6-0e9d-40f9-8708-f9f73d1ed485)

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rossdavidh
Not profitable, has never been profitable, its losses are actually growing
over time in absolute terms, it's IPO'ing anyway...and yet, it looks (even to
me) prudent and reasonable in the current climate.

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t34543
I used bill.com and ran quite a bit of money through there but I find the UX
to be terrible. Second only to WorkDay.

I never asked but maybe the accounting team loves it. As an approver and
receiver (separate companies) it never made sense to me. I used it only
because I had to.

~~~
edoceo
Checkout transferwise. Similar function, less jank

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useful
As a contractor, I've been paid via Bill.com it was very easy to collect and
send money. (not like I had a choice in the platform)

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YPCrumble
Don’t you have to pay to use that feature as a contractor? Isn’t that an
unnecessary tax?

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useful
No, I assume it was paid by the company paying me.

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jonwachob91
I have never had a good experience with their platform, or their customer
support.

I've had an account bug with them for over a year, and every time I reach out
to their customer support they just tell me I'm wrong and everything is okay
with my account... Meanwhile, the dashboard is essentially "bricked" for me
and I have to send invoices to my customer via email (how I prefer, but not
how my customer that pays all their bills through bill.com prefers).

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jkuria
Are they a direct competitor of Stripe?

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sbr464
Accepting ACH payments on larger client invoices (30-100k+) for a few dollars
is why we use them at one company.

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toomuchtodo
Is the experience sticky? Stripe supports ACH transfers, so I would assume it
would be straightforward to build on top of Stripe to replicate bill.com’s
functionality.

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pythonwutang
Would this make them a “centi-corn”?

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skinnymuch
Not sure if the joke was if they were valued at $100M or not. But they last
raised at Unicorn valuation. If they’re selling 10% of the company or less for
$100M, then they’ll still be a Unicorn.

~~~
creativipy
I think that was the joke. I thought that's what the headline meant at first
too. The headline could have been clearer.

