Reddit may target $5 billion valuation as IPO date approaches

Reddit, the 18-year-old social media network, is all grown up. Almost. After meeting with potential investors ahead of its upcoming IPO, the company is considering a valuation of at least $5 billion, Bloomberg reports.

At the moment, private trades of unlisted Reddit shares value the company below that number, at between $4.5 billion and $4.8 billion. Such trades sometimes indicate a lower valuation than a company might achieve in an IPO, as private shares are relatively illiquid. On the flip side Those numbers may indicate that the company will achieve a lower valuation than $5 billion at the time of its IPO.

The company’s valuation will ultimately depend on how much the IPO market has recovered. In 2021, the company raised money at a valuation of $10 billion, and the following year Bloomberg reported that the company may have been worth as much as $20 billion. 

That was all before the tech downturn, when companies began laying off workers and investors put a greater emphasis on profitability. Instacart’s IPO—widely seen as a bellwether for the rest of the industry last September—valued the company at $9.9 billion. That’s a downgrade from its March 2021 valuation of $39 billion.

Bloomberg reports that the company, which has more than 70 million active daily users,  may go public as soon as March. Ahead of going public, the company underwent a big rebrand. In April, the company started charging third-party companies for culling its data for AI training purposes.