Provide Commerce Inc., the new company to emerge last week from online flower site Proflowers.com, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. Proceeds of the offering, for which a date has not been released, will be used for sales and marketing of the newly repositioned company, promotion of existing and future product categories, and general corporate purposes, according to the filing.
Provide Commerce, which earlier announced not only the name change but a new business strategy under which it will expand the technology platform and supply chain solutions originally developed for its flower web site to support online sales of other perishable goods, will first expand into premium fresh meats and fruits. The company says it expects to open two new online stores, UptownPrime.com for meats and CherryMoonFarms.com for fruits, in the fourth quarter of this year. The company says it will investigate additional opportunities to leverage its direct to grower model, marketing relationships and customer base, which it says has streamlined the supply chain and enabled the delivery of fresher flowers, in the future
“Provide Commerce’s objective is to become the leading e-commerce marketplace for the delivery of perishable products direct from the supplier to the customer. Our long-term vision is to deploy the platform across multiple products, brands, and platform partners,” according to the filing.
Provide Commerce reported $4.3 million in net income, the first since it was founded in 1998, on net sales of $88.7 million for its fiscal 2003, primarily from its sale of fresh flowers, plants and gifts. Provide Commerce will continue to operate its Proflowers.com web site.
Back...
