Trulia files to go public

Reuters is reporting that Trulia has filed to go public, but has done so under the new – and controversial – JOBS Act, which allows companies with under $1 billion in revenue to circumvent the traditional filing process through the SEC (as well as many other provisions I won’t detail here). The Act was signed by President Obama in early April.

That means no S-1 to pick through right now. That will come later. Under the JOBS Act, an “emerging growth” company may keep its prospectus from potential investors for a much longer period of time then they would under a standard filing. The Act defines emerging growth companies as those with less than $1 billion in annual gross revenue in their most recent fiscal year.

Companies using the JOBS Act to initially file in private must make their S-1 publicly available at least 21 days prior to their marketing road shows.

The company has retained JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank to manage the deal.

The JOBS Act has been both hailed as a boon to innovation and condemned as a reckless relaxation of regulation that will be bad for small investors.

So, whatever the business merits of this path, it does raise questions.

We’ll add to this post as we get more information…