Roblox has entered the stock market. The company was valued at $45.2 billion

Roblox shares appeared on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. The company entered the market not through an IPO, but by choosing an alternative in the form of a direct listing. Against this background, its valuation has grown to an astronomical $45.2 billion — this is significantly more than that of Electronic Arts ($37.43 billion) and Unity ($27.76 billion).

A little background

For comparison, last year Roblox was valued at only $4 billion. When in October it became known about the company’s plans to go public, the media assumed that after Roblox went public, its value would double to $8 billion. But already in early January, the capitalization of the social MMO increased sevenfold.

The Series H funding round helped in the sharp growth. During it, Roblox raised $ 520 million from investors, and the company’s valuation rose sharply to $29.5 billion.

Along with the changes in value, Roblox has also changed the format of entering the market. Earlier, the company announced that it plans to conduct an IPO. It later postponed the initial public offering until early 2021. And immediately after a successful round of financing, she announced at all that she would conduct a direct listing. This method, unlike an IPO, does not require the sale of new shares and close cooperation with underwriters.

Access to the stock exchange

According to VentureBeat, before the start of trading, it was reported that the price for one share of Roblox would be $ 45. But by the morning of March 10 (the day of the direct listing), the company’s securities were already worth $64.5 apiece, and at the closing of the exchange, the price tag had risen to $ 65.5.

In total, Roblox sold over 388.2 million shares out of 650 million available. While the company’s valuation reached $45.2 billion.

But it’s worth noting that not everything is as rosy as it seems at first glance. Roblox recently reported that by the end of 2020, it suffered losses of $253.3 million. This is despite the fact that the company’s annual revenue amounted to $923.9 million.

Now an average of 32.6 million people use Roblox social MMO every day. Each of them spends about 2.6 hours a day on the platform.