Tech unicorn Pinterest priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $19 per share, valuing the social media giant at $10 billion.
Pinterest originally proposed a price range of $15 to $17 a share. The company, scheduled to go public on Thursday, will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PINS.
Pinterest announced on Wednesday that it is offering 75,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock, plus up to an additional 11,250,000 shares that the underwriters have the option to purchase.
The company, which describes its platform as “the productivity tool for planning your dreams,” was founded ten years ago by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp.
One of the main reasons Pinterest says its platform is attractive for advertisers is that most people visiting the website are searching for products or services they are interested in buying – there is a very commercial drive.
Of the platform’s 250 million monthly users, two third are female and many are mothers, which the company says ”are often the primary decision-makers when it comes to buying products and services for their household”.
The company has not made a profit yet, but its sales are on the rise and losses are narrowing.
Last year, Pinterest’s revenue rose 60% to $756 million and it inched closer to profitability reporting a net loss of $63 million, compared to a loss of $181.8 million two years ago.
There is still a lot of room for growth for the company. The global advertising market is forecast to expand to $826 billion in 2022 from $693 billion in 2018, according to research group IDC. Digital advertising is expected to grow to $423 billion.
Pinterest will start trading around the same time as the video conferencing company Zoom.
Zoom priced its shares on Wednesday as well and is valued at roughly $9 billion.
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Allen & Company LLC are serving as lead joint book-running managers for the Pinterest offering.