Pinterest has 265 million monthly users who bookmark images they find online by "pinning" them to themed inspirations "boards." Pinterest makes money by targeting ads at these users, selling "promoted pins" and click-to-buy shopping ads to businesses and hundreds of retail partners.
A note on Pinterest's $10B valuation: This represents the company's market cap vs its enterprise value of $11B.
Pinterest will debut on the stock market on Thursday at an initial valuation above $10 billion. In its IPO filing, the company said it lost $63 million last year on revenue of $756 million in revenue, with revenue growth of 60%.
The social network has 265 million monthly users who bookmark images they find online by “pinning” them to themed inspirations “boards.” That large user base is two-thirds women, and is highly valuable to advertisers. Pinterest sells targeted ads called “promoted pins” that appear at the top of users’ feeds and search results. Those ads brought in about $3 per user in 2018. It also sells click-to-buy shopping ads to businesses and hundreds of retail partners.
Pinterest was growing rapidly in 2012, but a recent CNBC report found that expansion was slowed by a cautious and sometimes overly passive culture at the company.
Pinterest raised $1.43 billion in its IPO after pricing the offering at $19 a share on Wednesday, valuing the company at $10 billion.
Pinterest, which is expected to start trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, had originally given a pricing range of $15 to $17. But investors appear to be showing an appetite for the social media company despite the challenges Lyft has faced since becoming the first consumer tech IPO of the year last month.
CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday that the company would price above the expected range. Pinterest’s revenue jumped 60% last year to $756 million, and the company moved significantly closer to profitability with a net loss of $63 million. Still, Pinterest’s IPO is below the $12 billion valuation it attained in a 2017 financing round.
Pinterest is among the first big tech IPOs of the year and is scheduled to start trading around the same time as videoconferencing company Zoom. Ride-hailing company Lyft was the first big offering to hit the market in March, but the stock has dropped 19 percent from its IPO price.
Founded in 2010 by Ben Silbermann, a former Google employee, and Evan Sharp, who was previously a designer at Facebook, Pinterest has grown to 265 million monthly users. The company burst into the mainstream in 2012 with rapid growth, but expansion has since cooled due in part to a work culture that many employees describe as slow when it comes to making decisions.
Silbermann’s stake is worth close to $1 billion at the offer price. Bessemer Ventures owns shares valued at $1.13 billion, while FirstMark’s holdings are worth $844 million and Andreessen Horowitz’s stake is worth $827 million.
Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are leading the offering.
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How Pinterest Makes Money
_everything is about ads_
Because ads are a good way to market. But I think the Marketing Landscape is slowly but surely shifting over to “Influencers” doing the adverts than ad posts.
Speaking of ads and how websites/apps get revenue…there isn’t enough discussion on Third Party Cookies. Personally, I block them on all devices…as any smart person would. But I’ll bet the majority of people allow them. Especially kids and clueless millennials. In doing so, they’re allowing themselves to be spied on and targeted by ads even more than usual.
so why don’t you pay google $5 for each time you use search, or pay $10
for using instagram per 3 hour, or even pay $50 for using youtube monthly
if you don’t like ads, then don’t use free product,
you take free product for granted, do you still remember your life in the past without internet?
They probably sell consumer data in addition to the advertising. They never mention data in the video.
And who Isn’t selling our data.?
@Konstantin D. Facebook earns 4-5 dollars per user…they have 2 billion users…
Pinterest actually collects and sells all that data to advertisers in order to make a profit.
@Contact your Congressmen advertising IS selling data. Why do you think they can sell it in the first place?? What do you even think this data is and what is the value in it?
Advertisers want particular ad campaigns aimed at particular groups of users. “Selling data” means websites provide granular groups of people to target with particular ad campaigns. For example, “people who are interested in coffee and soft drinks” may be a suitable group for redbull commercials, etc.
And it’s not really selling “data” on particular users, it’s more like selling access to parts of the screens of blobs of people with particular preferences.
No one cares about your identity or personal information, even if advertisers wanted to buy your personal info there’s no way for them to monetize it .
@space in va der advertising is sponsored content on a media platform that typically has the objective of raising awareness and appeal of a product, service, or brand.
Consumer data is information on specific consumers and demographics of consumers that can be used to anticipate future financial decisions of consumers. How likely they are to pay money on specific services and goods, how much money, etc.
One word: Ads.
Through this video,
I came to know that, Pinterest actually sells something
Adblock brother
I still don’t know what Pinterest is.
kiDkiDkiD12 yeah all I see is pictures like wtf. It looks like Instagram
@New World it’s not like Instagram at all. The content isn’t centered around people’s personal lives.
Me too bro
@AvgJane19 – …. Or censorship.
Let me guess : AdDs??
Ad is spelled with one d, not 2
By forcing people to sign up???
@Truth What are you a 10year old
That’s the freedom of choice
No body it’s putting a gun on your head to sign up.
@Víctor you can’t fully browse until you’ve signed up
@Víctor You do not understand.
it’s worth it.
Don’t like pinterest but I support everything competing against facegram
Lmao, same!
you can’t even browse pinterest without a sign-up screen covering the screen.
dbsirius
I’m a home owner and I found Pinterest to be very helpful with ideas about everything that I need to improve in my house . I can go back on time and get pictures of what I liked when I was kid . Share interés with other users.
I really don’t understand all the negative.
I am a male an I love Pinterest
I use it every day I r
Sounds like yelp on Mobile
If you want an endless list of crap try tumblr or Google images instead.
Pinterest doesn’t make much sense without the account.
That’s most sites tbh
But the stock price keep skyrocketing for days!
I just know them because they try to make you signup to view an image. My mind is programmed to never click on pinterest links.
Same
Same
Same
Yeah they give you one free image
Likewise. They have the same auto-avoid responses in my world as Yelp and Yahoo links.
Why do many people talk about a tech company as if they all are meant to be like Facebook or Uber. Some companies will be small, some gigantic.
Just like bobs.
10 billion valuation is not small.
@geekamails exactly
@Siddharth G Just…like…bobs….
So Pinterest is online Scrapbooking?!
More or less, yeah
Yep
YES AND I LOVE IT 🙂
Pinterest is awful and also one reason I don’t use Google’s image search.
There is a Chrome extension to restore the image button.
Then what do you use?
I hate Pinterest. They cover the screen with full page sign up ads.
Same thing with vsco. Even if you have the app a pop up will cover 3/4 of the the website telling you to download the app.
If you dont pay for the product, you are the product.
Been using Pinterest since 2014 there is a ton of ideas floating around in the app.
I like using pinteredt bcz it gives me so much good idea about DIY stuff, decor, wallpaper, fashion, etc. And it often lighten my day up whenever I see picturesque and splendid images there 🙂
Who else hates having to sign up to pinterest to continue
So bookmarking pics is worth $10 billion? Lol ok 😂
I really hope that I can Actually make some good money on it … I have been on it for a long time and I don’t know how to make real money on it