- Popular message-board site Reddit Inc. is reported looking for investment bankers and lawyers to stage a long-awaited IPO early next year, possibly at a $15B+ valuation.
- Reuters cited two unnamed sources Thursday as saying that the firm, whose message boards include the popular WallStreetBets chat group, is in the market now for help overseeing its IPO.
- Reddit declined to comment to Seeking Alpha on the report. However, many investors have long waited for the company to go public. Its WallStreetBets board has been a major force behind rallies in so-called "meme stocks" like GameStop (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) over the past year.
- One source told Reuters that Reddit hopes to go public at about a $15B valuation. The company announced last month that it had begun raising Series F funding of up to $700M at a $10B value, with Fidelity leading the latest round.
- WallStreetBets is just one of more than 100,000 online communities (or “subreddits”) that users visit to discuss everything from sports to politics and more. All told, the company has over 52M daily active users and 50B+ monthly views, according to its Web site.
- Reddit takes in money primarily from advertising, recently disclosing that Q2 revenues rose 192% year over year to a record $100M. However, the firm has reportedly never turned a profit.
- Still, its pre-IPO backers include A-list financial firms Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Investments, Sequoia and Tacit, as well as strategic partners Tencent Holdings (OTCPK:TCEHY) and publishing giant Advance Publications.
- Reddit also reportedly has a roster of celebrity investors like billionaire Peter Thiel, actor Jared Leto and hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg.
$15 billion when they make $100 million a quarter in revenue and have never turned a profit? Shit son. Also LOL at the Seeking Alpha comments on this:
"The neckbeard crybaby socialists over there don’t have any money to monetize. 15B for a message board with a bunch of pea brains whining and censoring each other."