Reddit prepares its stock market listing


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Reddit, the controversial discussion board that has established itself as a haven for free speech online, has begun the process of a stock market listing that could complete its transition to the mainstream.

The San Francisco-based company said Wednesday evening it had filed a confidential dossier for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 allowed companies to apply in the United States without publishing their prospectuses until the process was complete, provided their last annual revenues were less than $ 1 billion.

Reddit said it has yet to determine how many shares it will sell or a likely price range for the share. It puts its valuation at $ 10 billion at the time of its last fundraiser in August, compared to the $ 6 billion Reddit reported six months earlier.

An IPO on Reddit has been eagerly awaited in recent months. The platform’s role as a forum where users appear under pseudonyms, rather than demanding “real” identities, sets it apart from other social media sites.

This year, Reddit’s r / WallStreetBets bulletin board became a force on Wall Street amid the stock market meme frenzy as individual investors used the forum to coordinate their purchases and drive up the prices of several stocks, like the game retailer. GameStop.

The founders of Reddit said the “anything goes” philosophy was never their intention when creating the website, and its role as a haven for free speech was born by accident.

In recent years, the company has focused on more actively monitoring its forums and setting up an advertising business for a migration to public markets.

Reddit has had a long, winding road to Wall Street. It was founded in 2005, a year after Facebook, and was acquired by Condé Nast a year later for $ 10 million.

It was then revived as a separate company and went through a series of CEOs before co-founder Steve Huffman returned to run Reddit and set it up for a listing.

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