Yesterday, Roblox announced that it was set to skip initial public offering (IPO), going straight to direct listing on the stock market, given that it has been valued at a staggering $30 billion. This means that Roblox is the 5th biggest company to take the direct listing route, and shares will be up for grabs.
Normally, a company that goes down the direct listing route will not sell shares in advance, so, what will likely happen is that the price of Roblox's shares will be determined by orders on the stock exchange as they come in, rather than the prices paid prior to launching.
What they are planning to do with the funds is to build up the community aspects and become more of a social platform. The growth that it has seen over the past year, which is a seven-fold increase, can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it's no wonder that Roblox wants to make use of its now larger playerbase.
Roblox CEO David Baszucki released a statement, "We're thrilled to welcome Altimeter, Dragoneer, and the other new investors. We look forward to working with all of them as we continue our mission to build a human co-experience platform that enables shared experience, from play to work, and learning among billions of users."
Roblox was founded 17 years ago in 2004, and this could be its biggest push since. The number of daily active users soared from its previous 17 million reported in 2018/19 to an enormous 31 million in 2020, likely due to the aforementioned COVID-19 pandemic.
What the future of Roblox entails is unclear as of now, but the intentions are clear - the higher-ups want to make it even bigger. Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner put it best, "While once viewed as a gaming platform, Roblox has emerged as a definitive global community." If what's being said publicly is anything to go by, it's the community aspect that Roblox is ultimately chasing.