The social media platform Reddit made its public debut on the stock market through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Thursday, March 21, 2024.

Key Details of Reddit's IPO
Stock Exchange: New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

Ticker Symbol: RDDT

IPO Price: $34 per share (the high end of the expected range)

Total Shares Offered: An aggregate of 22,000,000 shares (15.28 million by Reddit and 6.72 million by selling stockholders)

Initial Valuation at IPO Price: Approximately $6.4 billion

Raised Proceeds: The offering aimed to raise up to $748 million.

First Day Trading Performance
The stock's debut was met with strong investor demand, leading to a significant increase in its price on the first day of trading:

Opening Price: Shares began trading at $47.00 per share, a roughly 38% increase over the IPO price.

High: The stock climbed as high as $57.80 during the day.

Closing Price: Reddit closed its first day of trading at $50.44 per share, marking a 48% jump from its initial $34 IPO price.

Market Capitalization: The closing price gave the company a market capitalization of roughly $8 billion.

The successful debut was viewed by some as a positive sign for the broader US IPO market, which had been relatively quiet in the preceding years.

Notable Aspects of the Offering
User Shares: Reddit set aside up to 1.76 million shares (about 8% of the offering) for loyal users and moderators, as well as friends and family of certain company insiders. These participants were allowed to buy shares at the IPO price and could sell them immediately, which is an unusual provision for early investors who typically face a six-month "lockup" period.

Financials: The company reported a net loss of $90.8 million on revenue of $804 million for the 2023 calendar year. Despite not being profitable, investors were drawn by its high revenue growth and potential new revenue streams.

Data Licensing: A key point of interest for investors was Reddit's new strategy to diversify revenue, notably a reported $60 million deal with Google to license its vast content archive to help train Google's artificial intelligence (AI) models.