Criteo seeks Nasdaq IPO valuing company at $800m Criteo, a French digital advertising company that delivers online ads for brands including Orange and Expedia, has filed for an initial public offering in the US that could value the company at $800m. The flotation will provide an important test of investor demand for the advertising technology sector, where hundreds of small private companies have emerged to take advantage of a shift towards digital advertising, and to compete with companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft. The last two ad tech companies to list - Tremor Video and YuMe - were forced to price their shares below initial expectations, which has caused concern among other companies in the sector considering going public. But many are pressing ahead nonetheless. Rocket Fuel, which provides a real-time ad-buying platform, is aiming to raise about $100m in a Nasdaq IPO in the coming days. Criteo stands out for being European in a market dominated by US groups. It has grown rapidly since its chief executive Jean-Baptiste Rudelle started the business in a spare room behind his wife's sandwich shop in Paris in 2005. The company, which generates 85 per cent of its revenue outside France, aims to complete the IPO during the fourth quarter of this year and raise as much as $190m. According to its IPO documents, the company last year made net income of €0.8m on revenues of €271.9m. In 2011 the company made €6.1m on revenues of €143.6m. Its technology works by showing internet users highly-tailored adverts for a product they may want, based on their browsing history. This data-driven process is known in the industry as retargeting. "We are able to deliver an advertisement with the right product, to the right user, at the right price and at the right time," Criteo wrote in its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which has more than 4,000 customers including many large online retailers, gets paid only when a user engages with one of its ads, usually by clicking on them. Criteo said that in the year to the end of June, its ads generated about 1.5bn clicks. "Based on these clicks, our clients generated over $6.5bn in post-click sales," the company said. Criteo declined to reveal how much it aimed to raise from the IPO. However, in its listing documents, it said the "fair market value" of its ordinary shares was €12.08 per share and that it had the equivalent of 47,215,638 ordinary shares outstanding as of September 3 2013. Using those numbers, the company is worth about €570m ($760m). The lead underwriters on the deal are JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Jefferies. Criteo's biggest investors include the venture capital groups Bessemer Venture Partners, Elaia Partners, Index Ventures and Idinvest Partners.