Reddit Moves Forward With March IPO Plans, Report Says

Reddit Moves Forward With March IPO Plans, Report Says

Time Stamp: January 18, 2024 2:22 PM
Source Node: 3069662

Online discussion platform Reddit is moving forward with detailed plans for a March 2024 IPO, Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The San Francisco-based company has been considering an IPO for at least three years. It filed confidentially for a going-public offering in December 2021, but like many private technology companies, delayed those plans as the business climate turned south the following year.

Reddit’s IPO would be the first from a social media company since Pinterest’s debut in 2019, Reuters noted. It would also follow a prolonged drought for new tech offerings and could help kickstart the IPO market. 

Only two major venture-backed startups — Instacart and Klaviyo — went public in 2023, and both have since floundered on the public markets. While industry insiders are hopeful IPOs will resume in 2024, many have said they don’t expect new offerings to substantially gain steam until the latter half of the year.

Other highly anticipated potential IPOs this year include digital payments platform Stripe, and Shein, the fast-fashion giant founded in China.

Reddit plans to sell about 10% of its shares in the offering, per Reuters, but has not yet set a target valuation for the IPO.

The company was founded in 2005 and has raised some $1.3 billion from private investors, per Crunchbase data. Its backers include Silicon Valley heavyweights Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Coatue. 

Fidelity Management and Research led the company’s Series F raise in 2021 at a nearly $10 billion valuation, though the investor later slashed the value of its holdings in Reddit by 41%.

The almost two-decade-old company has reportedly stalled going-public plans for years in a bid to move closer to profitability before facing the scrutiny of the public markets. 

CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman noted in a Reddit discussion with users last year that the company, which generates revenue primarily through advertising, has yet to turn a profit. While Reddit has grown its business — it expected to generate more than $800 million in ad revenue in 2023, up more than 20% versus 2022 — those figures fell short of its internal targets for the year ahead of the planned IPO, The Information reported last month.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman

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