With a valuation of $17.8 billion, Snapchat is one of the most valuable startups in the world. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, the company’s days as a unicorn could soon be numbered. The newspaper reports that Snap Inc., the recently renamed company behind Snapchat, is planning for an IPO which could take place as soon as March 2017.
After its launch in 2011, the image messaging app created by a group of Stanford students quickly gained popularity, as the app’s key feature of self-deleting photos seemed to strike a nerve with young Americans in particular. Over the past few years, Snapchat has added new functionality and evolved into a platform for private, public and branded content alike. It currently has more than 150 million daily active users.
The initial public offering would reportedly value Snapchat at $25 billion, which would make it the largest stock market debut of any tech company since Alibaba went public in September 2014. Our chart shows where an IPO valuation of $25 billion would put Snapchat in recent tech history. While no match for the blockbuster IPOs of Facebook and Alibaba, the rumored valuation would see the company ahead of Twitter and Google at the time of their respective public trading debuts in 2013 and 2004.
In any event, Snap CEO and Founder Evan Spiegel looks awfully smart for turning down the $3B from Facebook a few years back.
How will a Snap IPO impact the marketing world? Are you using SnapChat in any campaigns today? Let us know in the comments below.