Chegg, a start-up focused on the business of renting textbooks, filed for an initial public offering on Wednesday, intending to use the proceeds to raise additional capital and reduce debt.
The prospectus did not list a possible selling price, giving only a pro forma fund-raising target of $150 million.
The company, formally founded in 2005, specializes in renting textbooks, seeking to disrupt the long-established industry of high-priced books. The company buys books â€" it now counts 180,000 print books in its library, as well as more than 100,000 digital textbooks â€" and rents them to students for a semester.
In the prospectus, Chegg said that it now reaches 30 percent of all college students and 40 percent of college-bound high school seniors in the country.
The start-up has grown up significantly since its creation by a group of Iowa State University students: Its chief executive is Daniel Rosensweig, a former chief operating officer at Yahoo.
Its current investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Insight Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures.
For the first six months of the year, Chegg reported a 26 percent gain in net revenue, to $116.9 million. Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which exclude stock-based compensation, more than doubled, to $26.8 million. Using generally accepted accounting principles, the company lost $21.2 million during the same period.
Chegg plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CHGG.â€
The offering is being led by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
