Way back in December 2021, the popular online forum Reddit announced it had plans to launch an IPO and become a publicly traded company. Now, over two years later, it looks like that plan is finally going to happen very soon.
In a new filing today with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Reddit revealed its current financial number, along with the number of users that the online forum currently has. That usually means the IPO could happen at any time. When it does, shares of Reddit will be sold, bought, and traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "RDDT".
The filing stated that Reddit currently has 267.5 million active weekly users, along with about 73 million daily users The site itself has 1 billion posts. In a separate announcement from Google, it was revealed that the company now has access to Reddit’s Data API. That means Google's AI models will be able to train by using the content on Reddit's posts. While financial details were not revealed by Google or Reddit, Reuters reports that Google will pay $60 million a year to Reddit for this agreement.
Reddit also disclosed that it generated revenues of $804 million in 2023, and 98 percent of that money came from advertising. However, it also revealed that it is not yet profitable as it lost $90.8 million last year as well.
Also in 2023, Reddit revealed it would start charging money to most developers for access to its API. That caused a huge backlash from many Reddit users. Some of its most popular subreddits went "dark" for a period of time to protest the API changes. In today's filing, Reddit indicated it will try to monetize its data in different ways along with getting revenue from commerce solutions, in addition to advertising.
One other interesting thing Reddit says it will do is give its top moderators, along with users with top karma scores, an invite to buy stock in the company. it will set aside an unnamed amount of its stock that could be purchased by about 75,000 of its top users and moderators if they wish. So far, Reddit has yet to reveal its starting price for buying a piece of the company.
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