Snap Inc., which sold 200 million shares via its initial public offering (IPO) at $17 per share, saw its shares list at $24 on the NYSE on Thursday and close higher at $24.48. The closing price of Snap Inc. — which owns mobile app Snapchat — catapulted its valuation to $28.4 billion, much higher than rival Twitter's $11.5 billion and CBS Corp's $27.6 billion and American Airlines's $23.7 billion.
Snap, which owns mobile app Snapchat that allows users to capture videos and pictures that self-destruct after a few seconds, was co-founded by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.
Here are seven takeaways from the Snap Inc. listing:
The company raised $3.4 billion through its IPO, marking the largest since Alibaba's public issue in 2014.
Twitter was listed in 2013 at a hefty 93 percent premium to the issue price of $26 but has fallen since then and closed at $15.79.
Snap's valuation is far below that of Facebook's $397 billion.
The bullish response to Snap's IPO comes after 2016 ended up being the worst year for tech startup listings since 2009, according to the Financial Times.
Snap's net loss ballooned 38 percent last year to $514.6 million even as it grapples with fierce competition from rivals such as Facebook's Instagram, says Reuters.
Snapchat was launched in September 2011 and the Snap IPO is billed as the third-biggest tech IPO ever in US stock market history.
Twitter initiated its public issue in November 2013 at $26 per share, while Facebook sold shares at $38 apiece in its IPO in May 2012.
