Goldman-backed ThredUp looks to raise up to $168 mln through U.S. IPO

March 17 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs-backed GS.N ThredUp Inc is looking to raise up to $168 million through a U.S. initial public offering, a regulatory filing by the online resale clothing firm showed on Wednesday.

The company said it planned to sell 12 million shares, priced at between $12 per share and $14 per share, fetching a valuation of around $1.3 billion at the upper end of the range.

E-commerce firms have benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic as people preferred to stay indoors and shop online, prompting a clutch of digital resellers, including Poshmark Inc POSH.O and shopping app Wish's parent ContextLogic Inc WISH.O, to go public in recent months.

Founded in 2009, ThredUp has processed more than 100 million unique items so far from 35,000 brands, its filing showed. It had about 1.24 million active buyers and 428,000 active sellers on its platform as of Dec. 31, 2020.

The company's revenue rose 14% to $186 million in 2020, while its net loss widened to $47.9 million, from a loss of $38.2 million a year earlier.

ThredUp, whose investors include Trinity Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Upfront Ventures, raised $175 million in a funding round in 2019.

The resale firm said it would use $500,000 of the proceeds from the offering to start an environmental policy function to advocate the reuse of apparel.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters of the offering.

(Reporting by Sohini Podder in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

((sohini.podder@thomsonreuters.com;))