Fitness tracker Fitbit files for IPO

Fitbit, the maker of fitness tracking devices consumers can wear on their wrists, has filed for an initial public offering.

The company said it sought to raise $100m through a flotation on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'FIT', according to a filing with US securities regulators on Thursday.

The $100m figure, a place holder, is used to calculate fees and is likely to change before Fitbit begins an investor roadshow ahead of its IPO. Fitbit did not disclose how many shares it planned to sell or at what price range it would offer them.

The San Francisco-based company plans to use the proceeds from the offering, led by Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, to increase its financial flexibility and allow it and its shareholders to access public equity markets.

Fitbit added it could also use the funding for research and development, sales and marketing activities or to acquire other businesses.

Fitbit swung to a profit in its latest fiscal year, reporting net income of $131.8m, or 94 cents a share, compared with a loss of $51.6m in 2013. Sales more than doubled in 2014 from a year earlier to $745m.

The company, which counts Foundry Group, True Ventures and SoftBank's venture capital arm, has expanded rapidly as consumers warm to wearable devices. Fitbit has sold more than 20.8m devices since its inception and holds more than two-thirds of market share in the fitness tracking market, according to the NPD Group.

Interest on fitness tracking has piqued since Apple launched the Watch, with most models of the smart-device, which can also track fitness activity, on back-order.

James Park and Eric Friedman, co-founders of Fitbit, called the offering "just one milestone among the many that we have reached in the past and will reach in the future".

"We hope that all of us will continue as we have in the past: focused on the long-term and creating and transforming while remaining humble and deeply appreciative of everything that we achieve and are given," the duo said in a statement.

However the business has not been without its failures - Nike killed its fitness tracker, the FuelBand, in 2014 as competition built.

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