Snapchat Parent To Begin Trading On The New York Stock Exchange Thursday

Technology firm Snap Inc. surprised analysts and investors with its long-awaited initial public offering Wednesday, which raised almost $3.5 billion – substantially more than Wall Street expected.

Other analysts are even more blunt about Snap.

Snap filed federal paperwork in February to move forward with the initial public offering.

Snap Interactive’s stock is down 63 cents on the day, or more than 8%, to $6.92 a share.

They each landed a 17% stake worth $4bn (£3.26bn) based on the offer price in the share sale. During the past few weeks, Snap executives and CEO Evan Spiegel met with investors in various cities to pitch the company’s stock and try to quell those concerns.

The surge on Wall Street has been seen as proof, at least for a day, that there is investor demand for young – but still unproven – tech companies.

Founded in 2011, Snap has been anticipating its IPO since last fall.

Jordan Hiscott, chief trader at Ayondo Markets, added: “Snap is undoubtedly the most talked-about tech IPO since Facebook and it’s incredible when you think of its humble beginnings just six years ago”.

At the beginning of February Snap’s formal announcement to regulators of its plans revealed that the company made sales of $404m past year, but a loss of $515m.

Snap only began making money two years ago and is still struggling to turn a profit. This is the biggest tech opening since Alibaba’s 2014 IPO. Still, for those so-called unicorn startups that command billion-dollar valuations, Olshan Frome Wolosky attorney Spencer Feldman says he would recommend that they adopt nonvoting stock in their IPOs as long as buyers were still interested. The app added 36 million daily active users in the first half of past year – but just 15 million in the second half, says Sky. Snap’s pricing valued the company at $24 billion.

Snap, which owns photo-sharing mobile app Snapchat, had a bull run on Friday, gaining 10.66 percent to end at $27.09, translating into a cumulative gain of 59.35 percent and valuing Snap Inc.at nearly $32 billion.