GameFly has become the first game company to file for an initial public offering in quite some time. The company said in a filing it plans to raise $50 million.
The company is like the Netflix of video games. It rents games to subscribers, who play the games and then return them. It winds up costing much less than buying games outright. The company will trade under the symbol GLFY and BoA Merrill Lynch and Piper Jaffray are lead underwriters.
GameFly reported revenue of about $47 million in the third quarter of 2009, compared to $39 million a year earlier. Operating period for the quarter was about $6 million. The company’s backers include Sequoia Capital, which owns a 51.5 percent stake, and Tenaya Capital, which owns 5.9 percent.
The company has a library of 7,000 games and more than 334,000 subscribers. It was founded in 2002.