February, 2019
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According to Thomson Reuters and other sources, Pinterest, the San Francisco-based image search website, has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as underwriters to lead its initial public offering (IPO) later this year. Most recently valued at $12 billion in its last fundraising round in 2017, and with a reported revenue of $700 million in 2018, up from $500 million in 2017, Pinterest is among a host of start-ups with popular consumer brands rumoured to be gearing up for multi-billion dollar IPOs in 2019, including Uber, Lyft, AirBnB and Slack.
The nine-year-old Company has grown rapidly since its founding in 2008, and is reported to have approximately 250 million active monthly users, half of which now live outside of the United States. Pinterest employs 1,600 people across 13 cities globally, including Chicago, London, Paris, São Paulo, Berlin and Tokyo. Its notable supporters include Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Valiant Capital Partners, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Pinterest seems to have avoided the recent challenges suffered by its social media peers such as Facebook and Twitter, which have come under fire from politicians for concerns about privacy and political bias. It helps that most users think of Pinterest more as a visual search and discovery platform where people can gain inspiration and share new ideas with others, rather than as a traditional social media platform used to reach other people.
Speculation is that Pinterest could raise around $1.5 billion in the IPO, which is likely to come in the first six months of 2019, according to anonymous sources. Pinterest has declined to speak on the matter, but the speculation of its public offering has been brewing for quite some time, some signs of which include its continued growth and some new hires (Andréa Mallard – its first Chief Marketing Officer, and Francoise Brougher – its first Chief Operating Officer) that seem to suggest the company has been gearing up to become publicly traded.
Author: Samanthea Samuels
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