Reddit files to go public as 'RDDT' on NYSE
Reddit on Thursday told US stock regulators that it plans to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "RDDT". Reddit did not provide details regarding the number or price of shares nor when the initial public offering would occur. Co-founder and chief executive Steve Huffman said in a letter included with the filing that money raised by the share offering would be used to make Reddit a stronger, bigger company. Founded in 2005, the platform is home to more than 100,000 online communities devoted to a sweeping range of topics and was visited by an average of 76 million people daily in December, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "They come to Reddit to participate in a vibrant community, a constantly evolving place where anyone, anywhere, can connect with like-minded people and dive into any topic," Huffman said in the letter. "The conversation ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, the trivial to the existential, the comic to the serious." Communities on the platform are referred to as "subreddits", and one devoted to music star Taylor Swift eclipsed a million members last year, according to the filing. Reddit had a net loss of US$90.8 million in 2023 on revenue of US$804 million, according to the filing. Plans to bring in money include advertising and licensing data for training large language models (LLMs) that power artificial intelligence, according to the filing. "Reddit's vast and unmatched archive of real, timely, and relevant human conversation on literally any topic is an invaluable dataset for a variety of purposes, including search, AI training, and research," Huffman wrote. "We expect our data advantage and intellectual property to continue to be a key element in the training of future LLMs." (AFP)