Social media company Reddit submitted an initial public offering prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, applying to go public and be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT” after years of rumours and false starts.
Key Takeaways
- According to the document filed with the SEC, the company made $804 million in revenue last year, up from $666 million the previous year, but it reported a net loss of $90.8 million—down from $158.6 million a year prior.
- In a unique arrangement first reported ahead of the IPO filing by the Wall Street Journal, the company also confirmed it’s reserving an unspecified number of its IPO shares for Reddit users and moderators based on their contributions and participation on the platform.
- The company is reaching out to eligible community members, inviting them to pre-register for the “directed share program,” with a message sent to users eligible to pre-register saying “because you have helped make Reddit what it is today, you now have the opportunity to become Reddit owners at the same price as institutional investors.”
- The company, which started in 2005, touts 73 million average daily active unique users and more than 100,000 active communities.
- Reuters had originally reported the company was seeking to launch its IPO in March and had filed confidentially back in December 2021.
Key Background
Reddit was founded by college roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005, was sold to Condé Nast in 2006 and became independent in 2011, though Condé Nast owner Advance Publications remains its largest shareholder. Rumors have swirled that the company was eyeing an IPO for years, but following its confidential filing in 2021, the company’s efforts stalled amid a shaky IPO market. Reuters reported in January that the company was eyeing an end-of-February public filing, with an IPO launch in March. The company has been at the center of big stock market stories in recent years—most notably after scores of Reddit users united to buy stock in video game retailer GameStop, sending its value soaring and costing wealthy investors who’d bet against the stock millions. The last social media company to go public was Pinterest in 2019.
Tangent
Thursday’s filing also revealed that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is Reddit’s third-largest shareholder with 8.7% of Reddit shares belonging to “entities affiliated with Sam Altman.” He trails only the Chinese firm Tencent and Advance Magazine publishers.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
