Twitter files for IPO confidentially, company set to go public within months

The rumours had some merit after all. Twitter has announced that it has filed for an IPO in order to go public.

The micro-blogging website made the announcement via a tweet. The tweet says that the company has “confidentially" submitted the S-1 documents to the SEC which means that it will be taking advantage of a provision under the 2012 JOBS Act which allows companies with under $1 billion in annual revenue submit for initial documents confidentially.

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Of course, besides the tweet announcing its plans to go public, Twitter has not elaborated on its plan or its profits. The lead underwriter on the initial stock sale will be Goldman Sachs Group, reports The Wall Street Journal. Other banks are also expected to join Goldman in managing the IPO over a period of time.

The company has been valued at $9 million as judged by private sales by employees of their stock to BlackRock Inc. which puts Twitter a lot behind arch rival Facebook which went public with a valuation of $100 billion. Facebook went public last year but had a tough time struggling with shares till very recently.

Going public

Facebook’s public story will be keenly retraced all over again as Twitter plans to go public now. Post Facebook, the micro-blogging website is the biggest IPO to have been filed. Mark Zuckerberg almost prophetically spoke about the IPO story at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference two days ago, urging Twitter to not be afraid to go public with an IPO.

With a chain of hirings and acquisitions of companies like Trendrr and MoPub, Twitter has been steadily building towards filing for an IPO. According to an estimate, if all goes well, Twitter could be going public within the next three months.