Snapchat 'to float on US stock market at record IPO'

Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc, has filed for stock market flotation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to reports.

The photo-sharing app is expected to raise a record-breaking initial public offering (IPO) if its bid to go public is approved.

"Based on investments so far, the California-based firm would be worth between $20bn and $25bn (£16bn-£20bn)," the BBC reports.

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Snap Inc has yet to comment on the reports, but sources said that the IPO "could happen as soon as March 2017", according to Wired.

If Snap Inc lists on the US stock market, its IPO "would be the biggest since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba went public in 2014", says City AM. Alibaba, whose total assets are valued at $53bn, raised an IPO valued at $21.8bn, later increased to $25bn.

Snapchat co-founder, Evan Spiegel, revealed in May last year that the firm had plans to go public.

"We need to IPO," he told the Code tech conference, two years after turning down a $3bn (£2.4bn) offer from Facebook to buy the app, which he created in 2011 with Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown while they were at Stanford University.

The app allows users to send and receive photo messages which automatically delete after a short time, and has also become a popular way for advertisers and celebrities to promote their brands.

In June, Snapchat passed a significant milestone by overtaking Twitter in its number of daily users, with an estimated 150 million people logging into the app each day, Bloomberg reports.