Reddit has never profited from its broad reach while piling up cumulative losses of $717 million. None of them are listed among Reddit’s largest shareholders heading into the IPO.īy the tech industry’s standards, Reddit remains extraordinarily small for a company that has been around as long as it has. Other early investors in Reddit have included PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Academy Award-winning actor Jared Leto and rapper Snoop Dogg. Altman owns 12.2 million shares of Reddit stock, according to the company’s IPO disclosures. Reddit’s moneymaking potential also has attracted some prominent supporters, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who accumulated a stake as an early investor that has made him one of the company’s biggest shareholders. Per the usual IPO custom, the remaining shares are expected to be bought primarily by mutual funds and other institutional investors betting Reddit is ready for prime time in finance. Even with a sizeable “pop,” it’s possible that some might sell their shares to reap their gains soon after, potentially causing prices to drift. Still, she also anticipates Reddit’s IPO to be volatile.

“The good news for Reddit is it’s a hot market.” “The supply is pretty limited and there’s strong demand, so my sense is that this is going to be a hot IPO,” Reena Aggarwal, director of Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, said ahead of Reddit’s trading Thursday. The IPO will test the quirky company’s ability to overcome a nearly 20-year history colored by uninterrupted losses, management turmoil and occasional user backlashes to build a sustainable business. The going price has climbed even higher since, with shares for the self-anointed “front page of the internet” soaring more than 55% as of around 1:20 p.m. Reddit, which priced its IPO at $34 a share, debuted Thursday afternoon at $47 a share. Reddit soared in its Wall Street debut as investors pushed the value of the company close to $9 billion seconds after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. By Michael Liedtke, Wyatte Grantham-Philips | The Associated Press

Wall street debut