Groupon is raising the funds at a close to $12.7bn valuation, which looks set to net a big return for the European corporates which funded City Deal, owner of 10.3% of Groupon.
US-based daily deals website Groupon, which is indirectly backed by corporates that funded City Deal, a company bought by the daily deals website last year, has raised $700m at a valuation of about $12.7bn. Its shares were trading for $28 each at 1100 Eastern Standard Time, a 40% pop on its opening price.
Groupon sold 35 million shares at $20 each. This is an increase from an initial range of $16 to $18 per share.
In May last year Groupon acquired CityDeal, a Germany-based peer that first raised €4m ($5.6m) in January last year and which raised a further €5m in March 2010. City Deal, which was backed by Rocket Internet, which was founded by Oliver and Marc Samwer, owns 10.3% of Groupon, according to its regulatory filing.
CityDeal’s backers included eVenture Capital Partners, which has Germany-based retailer Otto Group as a cornerstone investor, Holtzbrinck Ventures, the former corporate venturing unit of local media company Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group that became independent in January, and Sweden-based Investment AB Kinnevik.
The other largest external shareholders in the business, besides vehicles related to family members of Groupon executives, were venture firms New Enterprise Associates (14.6%) as well as Accel Growth Fund (5.5%) and businessmen Alexander, Oliver and Marc Samwer (6.5%).
Other backers of Groupon include DST Global, a Russia-based investment fund backed by Naspers and Tencent, US-based fund managers T Rowe Price, the Growth Fund of America, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and venture firms Technology Crossover Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreesen Horowitz and Greylock Partner.
