Snap上市融资34亿美元，开盘价比发行价17美元高41%

做的是什么生意

Snap Inc. (formerly Snapchat, Inc.) makes Snapchat, a camera-first messaging app whose photos and videos disappear; it monetized 158 million daily users with Snap Ads, Sponsored Lenses and Geofilters, plus Spectacles camera sunglasses and the Bitmoji app.

启动资金：IPO raised $3.4B at $17 per share on 2017-03-02, after a Feb 17 filing that had planned about $2.3B at $14-16 (Fortune); Spiegel and Murphy each sold 16M shares for about $272M (CNBC) while Fortune reported the founders kept control through super-voting shares.

起因

By early 2017 Snapchat was about five years old (TechCrunch) and had become a generational habit: 158 million daily users at the end of 2016, up 48% from 103 million a year earlier, creating 2.5 billion Snaps a day, with 68 million US DAUs. Co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy ran the company, and its S-1 - quoted in full on the HN thread - described Snap Inc., formerly Snapchat, Inc., as a camera company whose app opens directly into the Camera, with Snap Ads, Sponsored Lenses and Geofilters as the ad products and Spectacles as hardware. The engagement thesis running through the thread: because a Snap disappears, the bar to create is as low as it gets, so users share constantly where permanent-feed apps get occasional posts.

经过

The public-market test was framed by warnings. Fortune reported 2016 revenue of $404M against $676M of negative cash flow, a super-voting structure that let the co-founders control major decisions while owning roughly 19%, and looming dilution: 105M RSUs granted in 2016 plus about 80M from earlier years vest at the IPO - one in six shares, worth about $2.9B to 1,859 employees at $16 - with roughly 270M new shares due within three to four years. The deal grew from a Feb 17 filing of about 153M shares at $14-16 to a $17 price and $3.4B raised on March 2. On the thread, bulls called Snap a call option on AR, citing geofilters, sponsored lenses and scarce Spectacles (official $130 units reselling above $200 on eBay); bears cited about a $500M net loss, thin ad-targeting data and the Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Stories clones, and noted the public shares carried no votes and no dividend.

结果

Shares opened at $24, about 41% above the $17 offer, and CNBC's same-day tally quoted them near $25 - an intraday market cap around $30B, with thread commenters citing $27.8B from the deal prospectus. Spiegel and Murphy each sold 16M shares for about $272M while keeping their controlling stakes; the thread's named next tests were the first earnings report on May 15 and the first lockup expiry on July 30, when employees could sell.

可借鉴之处

Snap出售了34亿美元的无投票权、无股息股票，并接受41%的涨幅，而不是稀释创始人的控制权——投资者在盈利多年前就已为增长和AR期权买单。