Pinterest sets IPO range at $15-17, valuing it at $10.6B vs previous valuation of $12.3B

After dropping its IPO filing two weeks ago, today Pinterest, the social media platform where people can discover and share ideas and content through grids of “pinned” images, filed an updated S-1 where it set the price range at $15-17 per share for a sale of 75 million shares. At this range, the company will raise between $1.125 billion and $1.275 billion. In terms of valuation — if you calculate Class A, Class B, plus options for additional Class B for total shares outstanding totalling 664.84 million shares — this values Pinterest at $10.64 billion in the midrange ($16/share), with the full range being $10 million (at $15/share) and $11.3 billion (at $17/share).

That is a tough (or, you might argue, conservative) picture, as the range values Pinterest about $2 billion below its last valuation of around $12.3 billion, when it raised as a private startup in 2017. In social media, Pinterest competes against the likes of Facebook for sharing ideas and links, and in e-commerce it also a plethora of competitors, including Amazon, eBay and more.

The underwriters for Pinterest’s IPO are Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Allen & Co.

The San Francisco-based company will trade under the ticker symbol “PINS” on the New York Stock Exchange.

In the original S-1 it revealed that it had revenue of $755.9 million in the year ending December 31, 2018, up from $472.8 million in 2017. It has roughly doubled its monthly active user count since early 2016, hitting 265 million late last year. The company’s net loss, meanwhile, shrank to $62.9 million last year from $130 million in 2017.

In total, Pinterest has posted $1.525 billion in revenue since 2016.

Pinterest has raised $1.5 billion to date and was last valued at $12.3 billion, in 2017. Its investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital, Fidelity and SV Angel.

For some context, in September 2018 the company reported that it had 250 million monthly active users across desktop and mobile apps, up 25 percent on the year before, with more than half coming from outside the US. It had been estimated that Pinterest generated around $700 million in ad revenue in 2018, up 50 percent on the year before as it launched new formats and options for marketers.

Originally the company filed confidentially to go public after retaining Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to lead its listing. Filing confidentially is a route that startups can opt to take if their annual revenues are less than $1 billion, so that they can go through the back-and-forth of preparing for their IPO outside of the public eye (and consequent scrutiny that this might bring to these startups’ often less traditional business lines and business models).

Pinterest’s move to go public now amidst a rush of tech IPOs, although not all listings have been rosy. After early and strong trading in its debut, Lyft saw a big dip, although it seems to slowly be climbing back up to its debut pricing again.

• Note: an earlier version of this post noted that Pinterest’s valuation was $9 billion at the higher end (or $9.19 billion if you add in the greenshoe, which would raise $1.466 at the top end if the full allocation is taken). This did not take into account the 66 million in options to purchase Class B shares outstanding at listing, which will be potentially traded from Pinterest’s debut onward.

Additional reporting Jon Russell