Closer to IPO, Snapchat exposes itself

Snap Inc. revealed plans for an initial public offering Thursday, putting the maker of popular messaging app Snapchat on track for one of the highest-profile stock debuts in years.

Although Snap didn’t specify terms in the filing, the offering is expected to value the company at $20 billion to $25 billion. It would be the largest USlisted tech IPO since Alibaba made its debut at a $168 billion valuation in 2014.

Snap’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday gives potential investors their first detailed glimpse into the company’s finances ahead of the offering, which could come within weeks.

The company reported revenue of $404.5 million in 2016 and a loss of $514.6 million for 2016, compared with revenue of $57.7 million and a loss of $372.9 million a year earlier. Analysts and investors have expected the company to generate as much as $1 billion in revenue in 2017.

Snap said it had 158 million daily active users on average in the quarter ended in December, a 48 percent increase from the same quarter a year before.

Snap said it would use the ticker symbol SNAP and confirmed that it will list on the NYSE — in a big competitive victory over Nasdaq.

Snap is set to become the first of a small batch of highly valued and closely watched venture-backed companies, such as Uber and Airbnb, to test the public markets. Many of these companies have raised huge sums in private deals that enable them to postpone IPOs for years, if not indefinitely.

Founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown while at Stanford University, Snap has raised a total of $2.4 billion from private investors. Its most recent funding round in May 2016 valued the company at $17.8 billion.