Snap Inc., formerly known as Snapchat, confidentially filed paperwork that would value their Initial Public Offering (IPO) at an amount that would make the messaging platform one of highest valued stock releases in many years.
Snap is a camera company whose products: “empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together,” according to the company website.
The app allows users to send pictures and messages that self destruct within 1-10 seconds, depending on the limit the user sets.
Shortly after its initial round of funding, Snap immediately gained favor with the Millennial crowd, much to the dismay of their parents who thought their children would be using the app for “sexting.”
Despite allegations that the app would be an easy medium for nefarious texting, Snap reported 150 million daily users in 2016. That figure includes 41 percent of all Americans 18-34 years old in the United States. Twitter, which was founded nearly six years before Snap, has just 140 million users interacting with the site daily.
The messaging platform even had a hand in the 2016 election cycle. President-elect Donald Trump became the first candidate to buy a geofilter, special overlays that communicate the “where and when” of a Snap in a fun way. One of Trump’s geofilters, titled “Donald Trump vs. Crooked Hillary,” garnered almost 80 million views during just one of the debates.
Snap geofilters became so popular during the presidential debates, that news outlets wrote featured stories about how voters interacted with Snap after each debate. USA Today and CBS News both wrote about the craze.
Snap’s IPO could value the company as high as $25 billion dollars, the Journal reports. The company filed the paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be the financial institutions backing the Snap IPO, according the Journal.
Both the number of IPOs and the money raised by U.S. companies are down this year. 103 companies made IPOs in 2016, and in total they raised just $21.8 billion. That figure is down drastically from 2015, where U.S. companies made 165 deals raising a total of $34.6 billion, the Journal reports.
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