Snap Inc.’s debut on the NYSE this morning looks like a big hit, and has been described as “the biggest tech listing in years.”
The Venice, CA-based parent of social platform Snapchat had announced an offering of 200 million shares priced at $17. The offering was heavily over-subscribed, with some fund managers getting as little as 2% of their requests filled.
The shares opened trading today at around $23.50 to $24.50, giving the company an overall valuation of $24 billion. This is the biggest tech opening since Alibaba’s 2014 IPO. A direct comparison with other social networks shows Snap falling predictably short of Facebook’s $100 billion-plus valuation in 2012, but impressively overshadows Twitter’s 2013 opening, which priced shares higher than Snap, but sold only 70 million.
Some analysts are expressing pessimism about the immediate future of the stock, pointing out that Snap’s fundamentals are closer to Twitter than Facebook. Nevertheless, it looks like there’s still some air left in the social media bubble.
