Friday, October 21, 2011

Seattle's Groupon IPO Connection: Maveron

What does the hype around the IPO of Chicago-based daily deals phenomenon have to do with Seattle? Maveron, the venture capital firm headed by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, and Schultz himself, are investors in the company. According to Groupon's latest IPO filing this morning, Schultz and Maveron have 1,899,336 shares of its stock, and will benefit from its anticipated public offering. Groupon said in that filing this morning that it will offer up 30M share of its common stock, at an anticipated range of between $16.00 and $18.00 per share, raising $621.0M for the daily deals site. Groupon is aiming at trading as GRPN on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. Other major investors in the firm include Accel Partners and New Enterprise Associates. Maveron announced its investment in Groupon, and the addition of Schultz to Groupon's board, in February.