By Michael Foreman
Christchurch-based online merchant EStar Online may bring forward its planned $1 million flotation on the NZSE second board.
EStar Online chief executive officer Matthew Darby told the Business Herald that "an extremely high level of interest from investors" meant the company might float earlier than the planned date of
November 14.
The second board had been chosen as the cost of compliance was much lower but Mr Darby hoped that EStar, which supplies music CDs over the web as CDStar, would eventually achieve a main board listing here or in Australia.
Last June EStar received $300,000 in first-round financing from "around a dozen private investors" organised by Wellington-based Southern Capital.
Mr Darby said he was mindful that many internet start-ups in the United States were not yet making a profit, but claimed EStar was working to a sound business plan.
The former chief executive in New Zealand of New York-based recruitment agency TMP International, owner of Monster.com (claimed to be the world's largest employment site) began development of the CDStar site in October last year. He said he was inspired by the success of United States-based operations such as CD Now and Amazon.com.
CDStar has been operational in New Zealand since March, and it opened for business in Australia earlier this month. Mr Darby would not reveal any sales figures, saying only that they had been much higher than expected.
According to Mr Darby, a large proportion of the flotation capital will be used to market the CDStar site through advertising in mainstream media.
So far, CDStar's marketing effort has been mainly via a banner on Xtra's home page, which the company receives in exchange for providing music-related content, and a paid-for banner on Telstra's Big Pond site in Australia.
