14 DAY TRIAL // Snapchat's parent company, Snap, is expected to kick off on the stock market at a $24 billion valuation, the biggest tech listing in years.
The company has managed to raise $3.4 billion at $17 per share after its initial public offering (IPO), making it the top tech listing since 2014, when Alibaba's IPO broke all records. The IPO book was oversubscribed by more than ten times, which indicates that today will be a hit for Snap.
Snap has had to convince potential investors that it won't have the same trajectory as Twitter has, a company that has been struggling constantly ever since its IPO, despite massive optimism shown both by the company and investors. Snap, much like Twitter, is popular among the younger generation but hasn't been making a lot of money.
A new tech record in the making
Ahead of the stock market opening bell, Snap shares are expected to have an opening price between $22 and $24, which would value the company at over $30 billion.
Following the IPO, CEO Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, the company's chief technology officer stand to make at least $352 million each. According to the latest SEC filing at the end of February, Spiegel and Murphy plan to sell 16 million shares each on Thursday, a small fraction of the number of shares the co-founders have in Snap, but it's still enough to make them incredibly rich.
Other investors and top execs in the company will also make a fortune following the official listing of the company at the New York Stock Exchange.
The high market value gives Snap twice the size of rival Twitter Inc, and the biggest US tech IPO since Facebook's five years ago.
Snap has taken quite a few measures to entice investors into believing in the future. The company has signed multi-billion deals with Google and Amazon for their cloud computing powers.