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Fleisher, who only joined Wayfair in October of last year was reportedly brought in by owners Niraj Shah and Steve Conine to mastermind their IPO, likely to happen later this year or early in the next.
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Michael Fleisher, the recently appointed CFO of online home furnishings giant Wayfair recently announced that the company has succeeded in raising $157 million in Series B funding.
The Series B funding round was led by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., a publicly owned American investment firm, based in Baltimore, Maryland, whilst among the investors are Julie Bradley the chief financial officer of online travel giants TripAdvisor as well as an unnamed Wayfair board member. .
According to Fleisher this most recent investment has now placed at $2 billion value on the Boston-based company, whilst further solidifying what was an already strong balance sheet for Wayfair
Wayfair’s co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah recently reported that their income for the 2013 financial year was $915 million, showing an annual growth rate of 55 percent from 2012. Wayfair’s revenue growth came not only from the Wayfair.com site, also from the Joss & Main private-sale site.
Industry commentators have speculated for some time that an IPO for Wayfair to the offing and that speculation was strengthened when Michael Fleisher was brought in to be CFO. Fleisher has extensive experience in taking companies to the stock market having taken the Warner Music Group public in 2005, before it was taken back into the private hands of Lev Blavatnik for $3.3 billion in 2011. Fleisher was also CFO of technology research giants, Gartner, when they went public in 1993.
Michael Fleisher graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of Business. Fleisher’s first experience in the world of commerce was as consultant at Bain & Company, a strategy-consulting firm, where he was employed from 1987 to 1990, leaving them to join Bain Capital, a venture capital and buy-out firm where he was to remain until 1993 when a joined Gartner, Inc., at that time an up-and-coming star in the world of technology research. Fleisher was promoted to Chief Financial Officer in 1998, becoming Chief Executive Officer in 1999 and Chairman of the Board in 2001.
During his time at Gartner Fleisher was a driving force behind the company’s remarkable growth, helping the company to grow to a major market force by completing more than 30 acquisitions and major investments. Michael Fleisher is also recognized as being the brain behind the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which grew into the world’s premier IT strategic planning event.
Michael left Gartner in 2005 to join the Warner Music Group (WMG) taking up the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer,
Michael went on to serve as WMG’s Vice Chairman in charge of overseeing company Strategy and Operations, where he oversaw the company’s global corporate strategy and operations,
Wayfair.com was founded by Niraj Shah and Steve Conine in 2003, and have earned tremendous niche for themselves through offering offer an unparalleled choice of home furnishings and decor to suit every taste and budget. At any given time Wayfair.com can have on offer up to seven million home items from 12, 000 brands, not only on offer at the principal Wayfare website but also at AllModern.com, described as the web’s leading destination for original modern design, DwellStudio, a lifestyle retailer known for groundbreaking design and impeccable quality in modern home furnishings and Joss & Main, a private home sale site.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Wayfair.com employs more than 1, 300 people in its four major centers in the United States in Boston; New York; Utah and , Kentucky as well as in its international offshoots in Southern Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. Wayfair was recently described as one of America’s Most Promising Companies by the prestigious Forbes Magazine.
