Snapchat IPO Date Anticipation Grows (fka )

[mick]

Snapchat As of May 2016:

https://finance.search.yahoo.com/search/;_ylc=X3oDMTNtdW1xMjI1BGtleXcDVGhlIFdhbGwgU3RyZWV0IEpvdXJuYWzigJlzIOKAnEJpbGxpb24gRG9sbGFyIFN0YXJ0LVVwIENsdWIu4oCdBG1pZANtZWRpYXF1b3Rlc3NlYXJjaARzZWMDdWhiMgRzbGsDZmluYW5jZV9zZWFyY2g-?p=The%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9CBillion%20Dollar%20Start-Up%20Club.%E2%80%9D&type=2button


http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/?co=Snapchat

Latest valuation: $16.0b (February 2016) Total equity funding: $1.3b
Valuation-to-funding: 12.1 to 1
Rounds of funding (current): 5
Location: Venice, Calif.
Founded in 2012
CEO: Evan Spiegel (co-founder)

CEO Evan Spiegel PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Competitors: Facebook, Kik, Tango, WhatsApp

Investors: Alibaba, Benchmark, Coatue Management, Fidelity Investments, General Catalyst Partners, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SV Angel, Tencent Holdings, Yahoo, York Capital Management

Snapchat Inc. first grabbed global headlines in 2013, when the young startup rebuffed an acquisition offer from Facebook Inc. worth more than $3 billion. To most observers, the move appeared foolish and greedy. Snapchat had zero revenue, no business model and was led by Evan Spiegel, then a 23-year-old college dropout with no prior experience running a company.

But what attracted Facebook soon became apparent to many others: Snapchat was rapidly accumulating users, mostly teenagers, and getting them to spend long periods of time in the app every day. Its core feature, developed by Mr. Spiegel and his two co-founders as classmates at Stanford University, is the ability to share a photo with one or more friends under the condition they can only view it for a short period of time before it disappears forever.

With more than 100 million users sending over 400 million snaps a day, the company has expanded into new areas, including peer-to-peer payment service Snapcash and a media newsstand called Discover. Investors eager to get a piece of the popular mobile app have piled in cash at fast-rising valuations, from $1.5 billion in November 2013 to more than $10 billion less than a year later.

But important tests remain for Mr. Spiegel, who must now try to generate revenue without falling out of favor with his legion of loyal users. The company tiptoed into advertising last year as Mr. Spiegel vowed not to be “creepy,” or target individual users with ads, a lucrative practice now common among all major Internet companies.

The CEO, who rarely makes public appearances and asks partners to sign lengthy nondisclosure agreements, nonetheless brought unwanted attention on himself when a batch of leaked emails from his college frat party days contained offensive remarks he made about women. A management bench that includes former Facebook executive Emily White and former Credit Suisse banker Imran Khan will help try to help the young company live up to its soaring ambition and turn its free service into a moneymaking business.

-Douglas MacMillan (March 2015)

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