Who’s going to get rich?
For Pinterest’s current shareholders and employees, as well as the private market investors who have poured around $1.5 billion into the company, the I.P.O. could provide a windfall. Here’s a rundown of who stands to gain:
Mr. Silbermann would hold a stake worth $878 million at the high end of the offering.
Mr. Sciarra and Mr. Sharp, his fellow co-founders, will hold stakes worth $721 million and $161 million.
Bessemer Venture Partners will be Pinterest’s largest shareholder, with a stake worth about $1 billion.
FirstMark and Andreessen Horowitz are the next two biggest venture capital investors with holdings of $755 million and $740 million.
Fidelity and Valiant Capital Management will hold stakes of $549 million and $460 million.
What everyone’s saying about the I.P.O.
Pinterest is “taking some of the hype out of the I.P.O. process” by initially pricing its I.P.O. below its last private market valuation, Gina Chon of Breakingviews argues. That, she says, could help it argue that its “conservative approach puts the long-term interests of both the company and its investors first.”
On the other hand, Pinterest’s “guarded approach may be risky,” Laura Forman of Heard on the Street writes. Since 2014, just 13 U.S. tech companies have priced their I.P.O. below their last private market valuation, she says, and “the 10 of those with publicly available financing data that have traded for a full 12 months lost 19.2 percent of their value on average in their first year.”
“Is it good enough to grow at 60 percent a year?” Shira Ovide of Bloomberg Opinion asks. “Under normal circumstances, this kind of company would be a must-have for investors,” she adds, but with investors also considering growth-focused companies like Lyft and Uber, Pinterest could experience “cooler demand from investors.”
And finally, its elevator pitch
An I.P.O. prospectus often features an idealistic, sometimes corny, letter from the company’s founders about their vision for the firm. Pinterest’s might make non-Silicon Valley types squirm a little, but it also takes a not-so-subtle dig at other social networks:
“Pinterest is designed to inspire. Pinners tell us they love how they feel on Pinterest: optimistic, confident and inspired. We work hard to keep the enemies of inspiration — comparison, cynicism, judgment — off of Pinterest.”
“Pinterest is personal. Not social. Pinterest isn’t about your friends or celebrities, it is about you. There are many tools to connect people, but there are few that help you connect with yourself.”
“Pinterest is made for real world action. Most ideas on Pinterest can be made, bought, tried or visited. Our end goal isn’t for you to browse images and videos all day. We want you to eventually make the ideas you see a part of your life.”
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