Oh, $nap! IPO Raises $3.4 Billion

Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., raised $3.4 billion in the tech industry’s largest IPO in over two years. That’s the word from Business Insider, which reports Snap sold 200 million shares at $17 apiece, valuing the company at a cool $23.8 billion. The company had planned to raise $3.2 billion by offering the shares at between $14 and $16 — for a maximum valuation of about $22 billion.

Snap’s coming-out party represents the highest-profile tech IPO since Alibaba Group raised $25 billion in 2014, and represents an important milestone for the five-year-old Los Angeles startup, whose messaging app has become wildly popular with teenagers and is a growing threat to established internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter.

Demand for the IPO was heavy, and by Tuesday prospective investors were being told there was enough demand to drive the share price to $17 or $18. The deal was more than 10 times covered, meaning there was more than $30 billion in demand for the shares, according to the person familiar with the matter. The majority of the allocation went to mutual funds that are likely to hold the shares for the long term, the person said. Shares of Snap are scheduled to begin trading today under the ticker symbol SNAP.