Australian paytech Tyro Payments is vying to float on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in an initial public offering (IPO) which is projected to raise up to $173.23 million (AUD 252.7 million), reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the 2003-founded firm, which said it’s Australia’s fifth-largest payments provider, is pursuing a $1 billion valuation too.

Targeting small and medium-sized businesses, Tyro offers an electronic funds transfer point of sale (EFTPOS) service, as well delivering online payments, business bank accounts and business loans.

The plan to float on the ASX comes after six listings on it were aborted last month, suggesting Australia’s IPO market is not easy to break into. Reuters puts this down to investors demanding lower prices to protect themselves against the possibility of post-float losses.

With a price range of $1.70 to $1.87 per share, the paytech said its focus still “remains firmly on challenging the status quo” for its merchants.

Despite net losses of $18.6 million in the last fiscal year, existing investors, including Tiger Global, TDM Growth Partners, Telstra’s CEO David Thodey and Australian billionaire, Mike Cannon-Brookes, will wait until Tyro’s 2020 financial reports before selling any shares.

Thodey, who is also Tyro’s chairman, said he’s delighted to be able to invite new shareholders. “We [can] build upon our solid foundation to pursue an exciting growth strategy,” he added in a statement.

Tyro Payments demonstrated its Smart Growth Funding financing solution at FinovateSpring 2017. The offering is the first lending solution released by an Australian challenger bank. Tyro provides integrated payment, deposit, and unsecured working capital solutions to SMEs, and partners with more than 200 point of sale providers and cloud-based accounting platform such as fellow Finovate alum Xero.