On Wednesday, Reddit announced that it had submitted a draft registration statement, confidentially, to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to go public. It did not disclose the filing publicly. The social media company has not shared any information about the number shares that would be offered or the price range of the offering.
Reddit was created in 2005. It was acquired by publication company Conde Nast in 2006. It became an independent subsidiary of the publication in 2012. After its became independent from its parent, many venture capital firms invested in the social media platform.
It became the go-to social media and was destination for day traders when the meme stock frenzy had swept through the nation. One of its sub forums WallStreetBets saw thousands and thousands of viewers on its message board.
There was a high stakes battle fought between a few Wall Street firms and the thread in WallStreetBets. There were huge gains for highly shorted stocks such as GameStop and AMC. The WallStreetBets Reddit sub forum is seeing action once again as one user joked about the possibility of pumping up the public offering.
In September, Reuters had reported that Reddit was planning to go for an initial public offering (IPO). Sources had told the news outlet that the social media company wanted to be valued at over $15 billion.
In August 2021, Reddit announced that it had raised $700 million and was valued at more than $10 billion. During the funding round the company also announced that advertising revenue had reached $100 million during Quarter 2 of this financial year. This revenue is 192 percent more than last year.
Reddit was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. As of January 2021, it had more than 52 million active users who were on the platform every day. It had 100,000 communities. Although its users are much less than the 2 billion on Facebook or the 211 million monetizable users (those who see advertisements in a platform) on Twitter, Reddit is looking to see a jump in its valuation after a successful IPO.
Reddit used to call itself as “the front page of the internet.” It now has the slogan “Dive into anything.” It considers itself to be “a network of communities.” People can find “their interests, hobbies and passions” on the social media platform.
