Reddit looking to raise $748 million from the sale of 22 million shares in IPO, eyeing $6.5 billion valuation

livemint.com:

biggest initial public offerings so far this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The social media platform and some of its current shareholders plan a sale of 22 million shares for $31 to $34 each, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn’t public yet. The company was seeking a valuation of as much as $6.5 billion in the listing, Bloomberg News has reported.

The people said the company is setting aside about 1.76 million shares in the IPO to be bought by users and moderators who created accounts before Jan. 1. Those shares won’t be subject to a lockup period, meaning the owners can sell them on the opening day of trading, according to Reddit’s filing in February with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

A representative for Reddit declined to comment. Reddit’s more than two-year slog to listing reflects the ups and downs of the market, beginning with its initial confidential filing in 2021, when IPOs on US exchanges set an all-time record of $339 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Reddit raised funds that year valuing it at $10 billion, and Bloomberg News reported the following year that it could be valued at as much as $15 billion in an IPO.

Meanwhile, IPOs in the US tumbled, reaching only $26 billion last year, the data show. In January, Bloomberg News reported that Reddit was weighing feedback from early meetings with potential IPO investors that it should consider a valuation of at least $5 billion. The company is a high-profile addition to the year’s roster of new and soon-to-be public companies.

The biggest of those listings was the $1.57 billion offering by Amer Sports Inc. in January. Astera Labs Inc., a software maker focused on artificial