Web sales hit $438.7 million for the first nine months of 2013.

Zulily Inc., a members-only flash-sale retailer of apparel, toys and other products for women and children, raised $253 million in its initial public offering of stock Friday. It received net proceeds from the IPO of about $140 million, which it says it will use for possible acquisitions of “complementary businesses, products or technologies” as well as for general administrative purposes.

Zulily, No. 77 in the Internet Retailer Top 500, launched in 2008. Its sales have surged from $10 million in 2009 to over $300 million last year, according to company figures and estimates in the Top 500 Guide. In a filing about its IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Zulily says its sales this year through Sept. 29 rose 116% to $438.7 million from $202.7 million in the year-earlier period, as net income improved to $0.2 million from a net loss of $13.6 million.

For full-year 2012, sales rose 132% to $331.2 million from $142.5 million in 2011, as its net loss narrowed to $10.3 million from $11.3 million, it says in the SEC filing.

Zulily also reports in the filing:

As of Sept. 29, 2013, it had 2.6 million active customers, or customers who had purchased at least once in the last year, up from the 1.3 million active customers it had as of September 30, 2012.

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For the 12 months ended Sept. 29, it generated $215 of revenue per active customer, a 10% increase from the $195 of revenue per active customer it generated during the comparable year-earlier period.

In the third quarter ended Sept. 29, approximately 45% of its U.S. orders were placed from a mobile device, up from approximately 42% in the second quarter, 39% in the first quarter and 31% in last year’s fourth quarter.

The company’s stock, trading on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol ZU, ended Friday at $37.70 after opening at $22.

A year ago, Zulily raised $85 million in venture capital.

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The retailer was co-founded by Darrell Cavens, a board member who has been its president and CEO since 2009. Cavens is a former executive of web-only jewelry retailer Blue Nile Inc., No. 74 in the Top 500. He left Blue Nile in 2008 as its senior vice president of marketing and technology.

Co-founder Mark Vadon has been Zulily’s chairman since 2009. Vadon also founded Blue Nile, where he continues to chair the board of directors and is a former CEO.  

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