NBCUniversal invests $500 million in Snap’s IPO

From a marketing perspective, the move played into the company’s aura of secrecy – its office is isolated from other tech giants.

The six-year-old startup, beloved by millennials, is the biggest USA tech company to go public since Facebook, which was worth $104 billion at its 2012 IPO. Venice residents and business owners are upset with Snap’s growth in the community, complaining that the company behind Snapchat has gobbled up once vibrant shopping and restaurant locations and converted them into boring office space. Its revenue per user sits at $1.05. The most well-known Snapchat feature, its selfie Lenses that let you puke rainbows or look like a puppy, came out of an acquisition.

Snap’s IPO valuation of $23.8 billion and 2016 revenue of $404.5 million gives a ratio of 58.8. Snap filed its IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission early February, in which the company said, “We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way that people live and communicate”.

The desperation is nearly embarrassing.

Still, it comes after a dearth of tech IPOs and IPOs in general, as venture-capital-flush startups see little reason to enter the public markets and all the public scrutiny that entails. After all, this is the same confident guy that said no to a billion all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook in 2013, because he thought he could get more money for his young company.

The fun part of going public is now over for Snap.

The Zero Hedge blog reported yesterday that potential buyers for 25 percent of Snap’s IPO were forced to agree to a one-year “lock-up” in order to qualify to buy the IPO. Spiegel will marry his former Victoria’s Secret model fiancé, Miranda Kerr, and the wedding will probably be lovely. And they’ll be fine.

Snap chose the ideal moment for its IPO: Wall Street is clamoring to capitalize on a record run of stock highs in a market that has remained buoyant on pro-business sentiment from the administration of President Donald Trump. He’ll still be rich.

The company has been vague on its plans to lead and monetize image-driven conversations, but has suggested investors put faith in the vision of its cofounder Evan Spiegel, whom it introduced in its investor roadshow as a “once-in-a-generation founder”.