comScore raises over $70 million in IPO

Shares of the web audience measurement company comScore Inc. closed at over $23 today, up about 42% from yesterday’s initial offering price of $16.50. The company sold 5.3 million shares in its initial public offering of stock on the Nasdaq exchange, putting net proceeds at about $73.7 million.

In a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 22, comScore says it plans to use the net proceeds for “general corporate purposes, which may include working capital, capital expenditures, other corporate expenses and acquisitions of complementary products, technologies or businesses.” It adds that it has no current agreements or commitments to make acquisitions.

“The principal purposes of this offering are to create a public market for our common stock and to facilitate our future access to the public equity markets, as well as to obtain additional capital,” the company says.

For the first quarter ended March 31, comScore posted net income of $1.54 million on revenue of $18.68 million, compared to year-ago net income of $85,000 on revenue of $15 million, comScore says in the SEC filing. For the year ended Dec. 31, 2006, comScore reported net income of $5.67 million on revenue of $66.29 million, compared to a prior-year net loss of $4.42 million on revenue of $50.27 million, the company says.

ComScore, founded in 1999, delivers digital marketing intelligence through its Media Metrix products and through comScore Marketing Solutions. Media Metrix provides data on the size, behavior and characteristics of web site and online advertising network audiences among home, work and university Internet users as well as insight into the effectiveness of online advertising, the company says.

The Marketing Solutions group of products combines the proprietary information gathered from the comScore panel with the vertical industry expertise of comScore analysts to deliver digital marketing intelligence, including the measurement of online advertising effectiveness, customized for specific industries, comScore says.

As of December 31, 2006, comScore had 706 customers, including over 100 Fortune 1000 clients and 15 of the top 20 online properties based on total unique visitors as ranked by the Media Metrix database for the month of December 2006, including Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., AOL and Google Inc. Microsoft is comScore’s single largest account—its spending accounted for 12% of revenue in 2006, according to the SEC filing. International revenue comprised approximately 9% of 2006 revenue as compared to 7% of revenue in 2005.

Credit Suisse Securities LLC served as the sole book-running manager for the initial public offering, with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc., Jefferies & Company Inc. and William Blair & Company L.L.C. acting as co-managers.