The Reddit IPO: What You Need to Know

Key Takeaways:

• Reddit priced its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) at $34 per share, resulting in a $6.4 billion valuation.
• The social media company seeks to sell 22 million shares.
• Reddit shares will debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday under the RDDT stock ticker.
• Reddit first filed for a public listing in 2021, hoping for a market capitalization of $15 billion, but was forced to reconsider after the market for tech IPOs cooled.

Reddit priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $34 per share Wednesday evening and is set to begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the “RDDT” ticker.

This price band values Reddit at about $6.4 billion. Reuters cited sources familiar with the deal who said the offering was around four to five times oversubscribed, with the company set to easily raise its targeted $748 million from the public market.

Reddit filed the paperwork for its IPO about a month ago, after first pursuing a listing in 2021, when management was said to be seeking a $15 billion valuation. A subsequent sell-off in tech stocks and a softening in the IPO market led to the company to revise those expectations downwards.

Investments and Revenue

In its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company highlighted investments in cryptocurrency and noted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was an investor in the firm, with 9.2% of the voting rights as of Feb 22.

The filing also revealed 2023 revenue of $804 million, up 21% over the year, but the company has yet to book a profit in its nearly 20-year history. Some hope that will change with the company’s CEO recently looking to leverage the huge amounts of data on the platform to train generative artificial intelligence models. The company recently signed a data-sharing deal valued at $60 million a year with Alphabet’s Google (GOOG) (GOOGL).

Challenges Ahead

However, there are also challenges ahead for Reddit, which disclosed an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a patent dispute with Nokia Corp. (NOK) in its recent regulatory filings.

Overall, Reddit’s IPO is generating significant interest and excitement in the market. With a valuation of $6.4 billion and plans to raise $748 million from the public market, Reddit is poised for a successful debut on the NYSE. Investors will be watching closely to see how the company performs in the coming months and years as it navigates challenges and seeks to turn a profit.

Update—March 20, 2024: This article has been updated with information from Reddit’s IPO pricing press release.

Read the original article on Investopedia.