A roundup of news items from the Puget Sound business community.
OfferUp may soon become the Puget Sound region’s only tech unicorn, throwing Bellevue into the mix of places to look for the controversial and endangered species.
The Bellevue buy-sell startup, which rivals longtime leader Craigslist, may be raising a $120 million funding round, sources told The Wall Street Journal. Word is that the round values the company at $1.2 billion.
That would throw OfferUp into the ranks of modern tech legends such as Uber, Snapchat and Airbnb. And all that apparently before the young company starts to make money.
The interested investor is reportedly private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which also invested $100 million each in local tech companies Payscale and Avalara, both in 2014. The New York-based firm has had a longtime presence in the region; it also invested in The Colbalt Group in 2000.
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OfferUp runs a mobile site where people can quickly list items for sale and easily interact with potential sellers. The 5-year-old startup raised $73 million last year in a round led by T. Rowe Price Associates.
That investment brought the total the company raised to $90 million, and valued OfferUp at $800 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
If the rumored Warburg Pincus-led deal comes through, and Journal sources say it is still up in the air, OfferUp would become the first local company to qualify as a tech “unicorn” — a private company worth more than $1 billion.
But unicorns have been getting a bad rap lately as some investors and reports have suggested that the tech companies are overvalued. That caused a bit of a retreat by nontraditional investors from technology lately as the community waits to see how new tech stocks will perform in the public markets.
OfferUp declined to comment on the funding report.
The startup faces steep competition from the familiar Craigslist brand, as well as from newcomers much like itself, such as New York-based Letgo.
But OfferUp is growing like a weed. The company said earlier this year it is on track to process more than $14 billion in transactions throughout 2016. The company has yet to bring in revenue from its service, and in an interview last November declined to discuss plans to generate revenue.
OfferUp said in June that it had 90 employees, up from 30 last summer.
Rachel Lerman: rlerman@seattletimes.com
Advanced industry rocks in region
The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area turned in strong numbers in advanced industries in 2015, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
The region had 308,210 full-time workers in such R&D-intensive industries, accounting for nearly 16 percent of all jobs. That employment share ranked us No. 2 among the top 100 U.S. metros behind only Silicon Valley. Metro Seattle had the 10th largest number of advanced-sector jobs nationally, with New York City in the lead.
Mark Muro, a Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program fellow, said, “Seattle remains the second most dense advanced-industry metro in the country, but its growth shifted in the last two years. From 2014 to 2015, softness prevailed in the huge aircraft-manufacturing industry while digital services picked up the pace.”
He added: “You should know that the vagaries of federal establishment classification mean that neither Amazon nor Expedia are picked up, meaning that the region is actually better than depicted here. Basically, we know we underrepresent advanced industry growth in the Seattle region because of how some of the major tech employers are categorized.”
The think tank defines advanced industries as ones spending at least $450 per worker on research and development and employing at least 20 percent of their workforce in STEM-intensive fields. They have been at the vanguard of growth in the nation’s economic expansion. “Their competitiveness and growth are prerequisites for any future broadly shared prosperity,” the report states. “As such, the sector encompasses the country’s best shot at supporting innovative, inclusive and sustainable growth.”
Locally, the jobs paid an average $120,851 vs. an average $67,276 in all industries. They accounted for more than 32 percent of all the metro area’s output. Aircraft products and parts, software products, computer-systems design, engineering, management consulting and web-search portals and internet publishing were the top advanced sectors here.
Seattle ranked lower in the percent change of jobs from 2013 to 2015, up 2.1 percent and ranking No. 50. Advanced industries jobs grew 4.2 percent from 2010 to 2013.
Elsewhere in the Northwest: Boise ranked No. 79 out of 100 metros in advanced industry jobs; Portland 20, and Spokane 92.
Jon Talton: jtalton@seattletimes.com
Petco unleashes new store design
Has Fido been longing for a concierge desk at the pet store all this time?
Animal-supply store Petco has been remodeling its stores — 12 of which reopened in Seattle last weekend.
Among the new features: A concierge desk where customers can get advice on pet nutrition or training, or schedule grooming appointments and training classes; a demonstration area where customers can sample new products; and a “Critter Connection” area where customers can play with their pets and test supplies.
The stores, which had previously featured brighter primary colors, have been redone with a more neutral, natural palette.
The redesign is intended to foster more connections with store employees and other pet owners and “highlights services that can’t be purchased online,” such as grooming, training and personal consultations, according to a Petco news release.
It’s part of the San Diego-based chain’s growth plans. The company opened 50 stores in 2015 and 26 so far this year. There are more than 1,430 Petco locations in the U.S., Mexico and Puerto Rico.
In Washington state, Petco currently has 50 stores, about 15 of them in Seattle. It plans to open two more in the state, though not in Seattle.
Janet I. Tu: jtu@seattletimes.com