Reddit confidentially files for IPO at valuation of up to $15bn
Online message board operator Reddit has confidentially applied to the US securities regulator to go public in an IPO that could see it valued at more than $15bn.
It comes after initial reports in September that the community-driven platform was plotting a listing in the US, and was seeking a valuation of at least $15bn by the time it made its debut, people familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.
Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet”, was in the spotlight earlier this year when day traders on its forum sparked a huge rally in shorted stocks such as GameStop and AMC.
Reddit has undergone several recent fundraising rounds that have built investor anticipation of an IPO in the near future, including a private $410m Series F financing round in August that valued it at $10bn, a rapid uptick from February, when it hit $6bn.
The exact size of the IPO and timescale are subject to market conditions, but the news will not come as too much of a surprise after CEO Steve Huffman told the New York Times in March that Reddit was “working towards” going public but had not planned timings yet.
Amid these reports, the social media site sparked more IPO predictions when it appointed its first ever chief financial officer – former Snap executive Drew Vollero – in Spring.
A free-to-use platform, Reddit gains most of its revenue from online advertising, and has around 52m daily active users.
In the second quarter of the year, the site raked in $100m in advertising revenue – an almost threefold increase on the same period last year, pre-GameStop.