WeWork files for IPO after losing $1.9 billion last year

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Money-losing tech companies like Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT) have struggled to win over investors since going public earlier this year. But that isn't stopping WeWork from racing to Wall Street. WeWork's parent company, The We Company, publicly filed paperwork on Wednesday to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering. The amount is a placeholder and will probably be substantially higher. The company plans to list under the symbol "WE." The company is moving forward with its plans to go public despite losing a staggering $1.9 billion last year, according to its IPO prospectus, an unprecedented amount for a company about to go public. By comparison, Uber said it lost $1.8 billion in 2018 and Lyft lost $911 million. The We Company continued to burn through money this year. In the first half of 2019, the company lost $904 million, a roughly 25% increase from the same period in the prior year. That sum includes losses attributed to non-controlling interests, such as its operations in China, Japan and the broader Pacific region which are joint ventures with investors -- mainly SoftBank. But its business is growing fast too. Revenue roughly doubled to $1.5 billion in the first six months of the year. The company said in April that it had submitted confidential paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. In addition to raising money from the public market, The We Company also disclosed that it expects to raise up to $6 billion in debt. The funds could help the coworking space provider continue its rapid expansion around the world even with its steep losses. The company has also been on an acquisition spree as it prepares to go public. It acquired workplace management software platform SpaceIQ at the end of July, office cleaning and management startup Managed by Q in April, and Euclid, which tracks and records movements in the office in February, to name a few.