MobiTV withdraws IPO due to 'unfavorable' market

Mobile video provider pulls $75 million IPO, nearly a year after filing

Ever since the Facebook IPO disaster, many companies have became skittish about going public. While a few have decided to keep going forward, more seem to be taking the safer road by taking their time and waiting a little longer, perhaps hoping that the market will rebound.

Now, one more company has decided to put its IPO on hold, nearly a year after filing.

Mobile video provider MobiTV, which filed for a $75 million initial public offering in August 2011, has requested that its IPO be withdrawn.

In a letter sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, Chief Financial Officer William Losch asked for the S-1 form it filed in August “be withdrawn effective immediately” due to “unfavorable market conditions.”

MobiTV, as a mobile television provider, is in a very competitive industry, with Amazon, Hulu and Netflix all vying for the same users.

The company had revenue $85.1 million in 2011, up from $66.8 million in 2010. At the same time, the company also had a net loss of $11.8 million in 2011, down from $14.7 million in 2010.

Emeryville, California-based MobiTV was founded in 2000. In the original IPO filing, the company described itself as “a leading provider of comprehensive managed services that deliver live and on-demand television and related media content across mobile devices, tablets, personal computers and other Internet-enabled consumer electronics.”

MobiTV licenses content from over 220 channels, including ABC, CBS, Disney, ESPN, Fox, MTV Networks and NBC. Content is provided on AT&T U-verse Live TV, NFL Mobile on Verizon, Sprint TV and T-Mobile TV, as well as Android, Apple iOS, BlackBerry OS and Windows.

In 2011, it delivered over 3,200 live events.

Other IPO withdrawals

In May, 13 companies, including Tria Beauty, Corsair Components, CyOptics.Graff Diamonds, Formula One, and Vkontakte, all withdrew their IPOs out of fear of what the market would look like.

Bloomberg reported that its IPO Index, which tracks companies for a year after they go public, declined by 15% in the month of May, the same decline the Index saw during the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008.

The second quarter of 2012 saw only 11 venture-backed companies in the United States go public, down from 20 the previous quarter, according a report from Dow Jones VentureSource. Those 11 companies raised $7.7 billion through its collective IPOs, an increase over the $1.7 billion raised by 14 IPOs in the first quarter of 2011.

So while companies might be raising more for their IPOs, there are less companies willing to take the risk of going public, and that is not great news for the IPO market.

That is not to say that all the news has been bad. In fact, there are a few signs that things may be coming back.

At the end of June, software-as-service company ServiceNow debuted 37% above its IPO price of $18, which prompted Kayak and Palo Alto Networks to both begin their roadshows.

Both companies are scheduled to go public next week. 

MobiTV was not available for comment

(Image source: mobitv.com)