Here’s How Rich the Snap IPO Made Snapchat’s Founders

Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, to kick off on the stock market at a $24 billion valuation, the biggest tech listing in years.

Some have called into question whether Snap, which lost $515m past year, will ever be profitable, as it faces intense competition from social media rivals.

Founded in 2011, Snap, which refers to itself as a camera company, is a popular player in the social network space.

Snap Inc. shares are reportedly expected to start trading around 11am EST on Thursday morning. If Snap stock had hovered at that level after it began trading, Murphy and Spiegel would have achieved a net worth of “only” $3.9 billion each-even after selling the 16 million shares as intended. The company’s market value is now $28 billion.

Snapchat aims to derive most of its revenue from advertising where it will compete against Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Snap argues its value is in the length of time its users spend on the app, as well as the revenue opportunities that will arise through the growing trend of young people using video to interact with each other instead of text.

Facebook Inc., by comparison, was valued at $104 billion at the time of its IPO, while Twitter Inc.’s value at IPO stood at just over $14 billion. It faces intense competition from larger rivals such as Facebook’s Instagram as it grapples with decelerating user growth.

Snapchat has a user base of 158 million that send 2.5 billion daily messages on average, according to Snap’s IPO filing.

Some analysts believe Snap’s splashy debut might now help awaken what’s been a sluggish IPO market for the USA technology sector.

Pivotal Research analyst Brian Weiser also has doubts about Snap, and issued a target price of $10. Its student-run endowment fund was among the company’s first investors. As a result, it launched Spectacles past year – actual physical sunglasses that snap photos for you.

School leaders say they plan to release more information later Thursday.