Reddit Plans To Raise $6.4 Billion In Its Much-Anticipated IPO

(CTN News) – On Monday, Reddit said it plans to value its U.S. initial public offering (IPO) at $6.4 billion, making it one of the most-anticipated debuts on the stock market in years.

To raise up to $748 million, the company and some of its existing investors plan to sell 22 million shares at a price between $31 and $34.

A major litmus test of investor appetite for new listings, the IPO comes more than two years after the company began preparing. There has been an uneven recovery in the IPO market so far this year.

A fully diluted valuation of the company is less than the $10 billion valuation Reddit received after its fundraising in 2021.
The launch of Reddit in 2005 marked the beginning of social media culture. One of the most recognizable internet symbols features an alien with an orange background. The site’s 100,000 online forums, known as “subreddits”, allow people to discuss topics ranging from “the sublime to the ridiculous, the trivial to the existential, the comic to the serious”.

A subreddit helped Huffman quit drinking, he wrote in his letter. He also did an AMA (“ask me anything”) with the site’s users in 2012.

Reddit’s influential communities are best known for the “meme-stock” saga of 2021, when several retail investors collaborated on the “wallstreetbets” forum to purchase shares of shorted companies like GameStop (GME.N). Those securities were torpedoed by the episode, making retail traders a force to reckon with. Seth Rogen starred in a 2023 film based on it.

In order to tap into the retail market, Reddit has reserved 8% of the shares for its users, moderators, board members, and their friends and families. Unlike lock-up buyers, such buyers may sell their shares on the first day of trading, potentially resulting in higher price volatility.

A unique IPO like this will be partly driven by the buzz on the platform, according to Reena Aggarwal, director of Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America Securities are the lead underwriters. Reddit plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “RDDT.”.

A LIMITED SUCCESS IN COMMERCE

In spite of its cult-like status among followers, Reddit has fallen behind competitors such as Meta Platforms’ Facebook (META.O) and Twitter. In its filing earlier this year, the company said it was “in the early stages of monetizing its business.”.

As of Dec. 31, 2023, Reddit’s platform had 73.1 million daily active “uniques” – users who visit at least once a day. Moderators have also been a sticking point. Volunteers from its user base moderate the forums’ content. The company’s decision to charge third-party apps developers to access its data prompted several moderators to resign in protest during 2023.

As a public company, Reddit will be subjected to much more scrutiny in terms of its platform, what’s being posted, and how it’s being monitored. These issues concern regulators and policymakers.

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