Snapchat Planning To Raise $4 Billion In 2017 IPO: Report

Snap Inc., the company formerly known as Snapchat, is seeking to raise up to $4 billion in its planned initial public offering next year, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The company, known for its short-lived messaging concept, is currently preparing to begin offering shares to the public early next year in an IPO that would value it at anything between $25 billion and $35 billion.

According to the unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg, the valuation could now go as high as $40 billion — more than double the $18 billion it was valued at during a private funding round earlier this year. However, no final decision has yet been made, and the value of the IPO may still change.

If the IPO goes forward as planned, it would be the biggest one in the U.S. since 2014, when the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba raised $25 billion through public listing.

The 5-year-old company, which has, over the past few weeks, unveiled a raft of new features and its first hardware product — called Spectacles — reportedly generated $59 million in revenue last year. This year, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, the company is targeting revenue of over $350 billion — a nearly six-fold increase over 2015.

Although the company has come close to besting Facebook in terms of grabbing eyeballs for video content — catching up with its 8 billion-a-day video traffic in March, Snapchat has faced tough competition from Instagram — the photo-sharing platform also owned by Facebook. Earlier this year, Instagram unveiled a “Stories” feature — one that closely resembles a Snapchat feature, also known as “Stories.” This, according to initial reports, may hurt Snapchat’s growth in the coming months.