Yelp will start its IPO at $12-$14 per share

Yelp has amended its SEC S-1 filing to show a starting price of $12 to $14 per share of Yelp stock.

The shares will make their debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol YELP.

The most recent amendment to the S-1 form was filed today after the closing bell.

The company initially filed for its IPO back in November. In the deal, the company expects to raise $100 million.

The last time the venture-backed startup disclosed its earnings, net revenue for the first three quarters of 2011 sat at $58.4 million, up 80 percent year over year. That figure breaks down to around $40 million in from local advertising revenue, $12.6 million from brand advertising revenue, and $5.4 million from other revenue sources.

At that time, the company had $23 million in cash and saw losses of $7.6 million for the nine-month period in 2011, lower than the $8.5 million losses posted for the first three quarters of 2010.

Yelp has come under criticism in recent days for its practices with regard to small businesses. In a recent VentureBeat editorial post, contributor Rocky Agrawal blasted the company, calling Yelp advertising a “rip-off for smaller businesses and saying that the company vastly overcharged its smaller customers by around 1,000 times more than the industry standard.

Agrawal also argued that Yelp’s advertising — a huge part of its revenue — is poorly targeted, meaning that not only are advertisers being overcharged in his opinion, but Yelp is also not delivering the promised results.

We’ll keep you updated with news on the Yelp IPO as the date draws nearer, so stay tuned.

Source: V.B