Chicago-Based Groupon Files for Hotly Anticipated IPO

The daily deal website Groupon has filed to sell shares to the public, stoking excitement about a new tech boom in Chicago.

Groupon plans to raise as much $750 million and says it will use the money for working capital, including buying other companies.

Last year, Forbes called Groupon the fastest-growing company ever, and anticipation of a Groupon IPO has been growing ever since the company reportedly spurned a $6 billion buyout offer from Google.

Waverly Deutsch is a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She says this is a huge deal for Chicago's tech scene.

"Either in 2000 or 2001, BusinessWeek featured a cover article that was, 'How Did Chicago Entirely Miss the Tech Boom?' They can't say that this time around," Deutsch said.

In its IPO filing, Groupon says sales grew from $3 million in the second quarter of 2009 to $645 million in the first quarter of this year. The company says its ticker symbol will be GRPN.