Reddit files for IPO with possible US$5B valuation
Reddit Inc. filed for an initial public offering, revealing the social media platform’s shrinking losses and helping to propel a still-tenuous resurgence in U.S. listings.
The San Francisco-based company, in what is set to be one of the biggest listings of the year, filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to move ahead with an IPO, more than two years after first submitting its plan confidentially.
Reddit won’t disclose proposed terms for the IPO, including its valuation in a listing, until a later filing. The company has been advised to consider a valuation of at least US$5 billion in an IPO and could begin marketing the shares as soon as March, Bloomberg News has reported.
Reddit, fo.unded in 2005, averaged 73.1 million daily active unique visitors in the fourth quarter, according to the filing. It became an icon of the so-called meme-stock era after a forum on the site, Wallstreetbets, jolted the stock market.
The company reported a net loss of US$90.8 million on revenue of US$804 million in 2023, compared with a net loss of US$158.6 million on revenue of US$666.7 million a year earlier.
Reddit co-founder and chief executive Steven Huffman said in a signed letter included in the filing that the company has many opportunities to grow both the platform and the business.
“Advertising is our first business, and advertisers of all sizes have discovered that Reddit is a great place to find high-intent customers that they aren’t able to reach elsewhere,” Huffman said.
“Advertising on Reddit is rapidly evolving, and we are still in the early phases of growing this business.”
Reddit said it’s in the early stages of allowing third parties to license access to data on the platform, including to train artificial intelligence models.