Brightcove, a Cambridge, MA tech firm that provides a cloud-based video platform (customers include The New York Times), hopes to raise $55 million in an in initial public offering that is anticipated to occur this week.

Brightcove's founder, Jeremy Allaire, is a Minnesota native (from the Winona area) who graduated from Macalester. In the mid-90s he founded a Twin Cities company, with his brother J J Allaire, that created the web development tool ColdFusion. He moved the company to the Bay State to be closer to investors. He later sold it to Macromedia.

Brightcove has raised more than $100 million in venture capital, but has yet to turn a profit. Revenue topped $60 million last year, up 48 percent from 2010.

(Disclosure: I worked for a Twin Cities p.r. firm in 2009-2010 that did some work for Brightcove. I've had no contact with Brightcove since the spring of 2010).