Reddit jumps on IPO bandwagon with confidential filing

By Sonia Cheema and Noor Zainab Hussain

Reddit Inc, whose message boards became the go-to destination for day traders during this year's meme stock frenzy, said on Wednesday it had confidentially filed for an initial public offering with U.S. securities regulators.

Reuters reported in September the company was hoping to hit a valuation of more than $15 billion by the time it planned to list its shares.

The company's message boards were at the heart of a pitched battle between small-time traders and some of the big Wall Street firms that drove big gains in highly shorted shares of companies such as GameStop and AMC, while popularizing the term meme stocks.

At the height of the trading frenzy in February, Reddit's value doubled to $6 billion from a year earlier. The company was valued at $10 billion in a private fundraising round in August.

On Reddit thread WallStreetBets some users joked about potentially pumping the offering when it became available.

"I'm in. When do we start?" a Reddit user called 9axle said in a post

Founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Reddit had roughly 52 million daily active users and over 100,000 communities, or "sub-reddits," as of October last year.

The San Francisco-based company reported $100 million in advertising revenue in the second quarter, an almost threefold jump from the same period last year.

Online brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc, whose trading app was at the center of the meme stock frenzy, had its IPO in July.

Reddit's investors over the years have included venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, funds such as Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings, as well as rap superstar Snoop Dogg.

Reddit did not disclose the number of shares to be offered or the price range of the IPO in the draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.