Accounting software developer BlackLine Inc. has filed for an initial public offering at a quiet time when investors have assumed a wait-and-see attitude. The Woodland Hills company filed paperwork with the Securities & Exchange Commission on Sept. 30 outlining its plans to use the potential proceeds of up to $100 million to pay off the $65 million balance of its credit facility and for general corporate purposes. BlackLine would be listed under the ticker symbol BL on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. No date was listed in the filing for when the shares would start trading. The company was founded in 2001 by Therese Tucker, its chief executive, after she retired as chief technology officer at SunGard, a software and technology services company in Wayne, Pa. It develops software that automates the processes of closing out financial books and reconciling accounts to make sure the money coming in matches the money being spent. Existing customers include Dow Chemical Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Air Medical Group Holdings. According to its filing, for the six-month period ending June 30, BlackLine had a net loss of $16.9 million (-8 cents a share), compared with a net loss of $10.8 million (-5 cents) in the same period a year earlier. Revenue increased 48 percent to $55.6 million. Some of the debt that BlackLine will pay back with the proceeds from the IPO are connected to its acquisition in early September of Runbook, a European company providing similar financial software. Tucker said the acquisition of the Dutch firm is an important investment in the company’s future and strengthens its products for customers. “(Runbook) brings a wealth of talent, technology and execution knowledge to BlackLine, broadening our continuous accounting platform by adding complementary technologies,” Tucker said in a prepared statement. Runbook co-founders Herman Heller and Rob Leesberg will join the BlackLine management team. BlackLine declined an interview for this story because after a company files for an IPO it enters a “quiet period” when it is prohibited from publicly promoting its stock. Joseph Muscat, growth markets leader for the west region at London-based financial services firm Ernst & Young LLP, said investors are paying close attention to drivers in the macro economy when it comes to putting money into new public companies. “The election, what is going to happen with interest rates and the overall strength of the U.S. economy I think are three factors that investors are focused on,” Muscat said. Weak IPO market FactSet Research Systems Inc., a financial data company in Norwalk, Conn., reported Oct. 4 that in the first nine months of the year there had been 73 companies going public, one of the lowest rates since the recession. When it comes to technology companies, such as BlackLine, there had been 15 IPOs so far this year. Out of that number 10 were West Coast-based companies and seven out of the 10 were in California, Muscat said. Three Los Angeles area tech companies went public this year – Monster Digital Inc. in Simi Valley; ad tech firm TradeDesk Inc. in Ventura; and Culver City healthcare tech provider NantHealth Inc., founded by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. “It is demonstrative of the innovation that we see happening on the West Coast,” Muscat said of the three companies. The last company to go public in the San Fernando Valley was Sylmar-based Second Sight Medical Products Inc. in November 2014. The Valley, however, has also lost a number of its public companies, including Glendale’s DreamWorks Animation Inc., folded into a division of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal; Electro Rent Inc., in Van Nuys, purchased by private investment firm Platinum Equity in Beverly Hills; and Woodland Hills online marketer ReachLocal Inc. bought by Gannett Co. Inc. Also, the sale of DTS Inc., the Calabasas audio technology developer, will close later this year or early next year to Tessera Technologies Inc., in San Jose, in a deal valued at $850 million. Private equity In 2013, two Silicon Valley private equity firms invested in BlackLine. Silver Lake Sumeru, in Menlo Park, reportedly put $200 million into the Valley company, in partnership with Iconiq Capital, a San Francisco-based multifamily office and merchant bank for a group of influential families. At the time of the investment, Tucker said the company picked Silver Lake because its culture and values were similar to BlackLine’s. Silver Lake Sumeru invests in middle-market technology companies with established business models. Firm principal Jason Babcoke and managing directors Hollie Moore Haynes and John Brennan joined the BlackLine board of directors. Private equity investors consider several elements when deciding to take a portfolio company public, Muscat said. One is that the capital raised from selling the stock is available for future transactions, and another is the recognition that public companies have a greater stature in capital markets because of their financial transparency. Lastly, having a company go public can put the private equity funds on the path to liquidity because they can sell their shares. “All three of those are usually factors that get fit in to the question of going public,” Muscat said.