Snapchat Files For Estimated $25B IPO, Avoids Giving AR Glasses To Geeks

Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat has finally filed its papers for its IPO, which is expected to be worth $25 billion. This would make it the biggest IPO debut of a tech company in years. In related news, the company has also been desperate to keep its newly unveiled Spectacles AR camera glasses away from nerds. This is in order to avoid the same ill-fate of the Google Glass.

The IPO is expected to launch in March 2017, The Wall Street Journal reports, and is estimated to be between $20 and $25 billion in valuation. The last time a tech company was valued this highly was when Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. debuted in 2014 at $168 billion.

With the 2016 IPO market being stuck in a slump, analysts are hoping that Snap Inc.’s offering would give it a shot in the arm. So far, only $21.8 billion has been raised, and that’s with 103 companies listing their shares. This marks it as the lowest level since 2009.

Aside from Snap, Uber Technologies Inc. is also included in the batch of select companies that are being closely monitored for their high value. The latter hasn’t made any commitments to actually go through with their own IPO, however.

Speaking of Snap Inc., the company is riding on the potential of their first hardware product called the Spectacles, which is basically sunglasses with a camera mounted on it. This allows users to shoot short videos or photos that they can then post on their Snapchat accounts by connecting to devices.

The company has been very careful about how they present these glasses to the public, which is why it is trying very hard to stop tech bloggers from getting ahold of one, Tech Crunch reports. No early samples have been sent out for reviews, but this hasn’t stopped the infamous Robert Scoble from getting his hands on the device.

For those who don’t know, Scoble was the person responsible for singlehandedly killing any chance of the Google Glass from becoming cool. Since he posted a picture of him wearing the device while naked in the shower, it was doomed.