Roblox Goes Public and is Instantly Worth more than $45 Billion
Roblox had revenue of $925 million in 2018 which was an increase of 82% from 2019. https://serverstat.net/ Roblox also announced earlier this month that its sales are expected to rise by 60% from $1.44 billion to $0.52 billion.
There is no sign of slowing down for IPOs or SPACs
Roblox had 32.6 Million Daily Active Users at the End of 2020, and the company anticipates that it will have 34.6 to 36.4 Million users by 2021.
The majority of the company's players are kids 13 and under. Baszucki said that the company is nearing the point at which the majority of its users are not tweens. He also said that the number of 17-24 year-old Roblox users is growing very rapidly.
Roblox however, has noted in its documents with Securities and Exchange Commission that the growing number of users will result in more scrutiny of the platform.
"The increased use of interactive entertainment like ours by consumers, especially younger ones, could cause calls for more strict consumer protection laws and regulations that could impose additional burdens on companies such as ours," Roblox said.
This means that Roblox needs to ensure that the game is safe for children playing it and that privacy practices are strictly enforced. The company also has safeguards in place to ensure that young users aren't spending too much to buy Robux.
Baszucki was elated about the debut of the stock market and added that it's beneficial for investors who have a long-term view and employees in Roblox established in 2004 to take part financially in the company's growth.
Roblox listed shares on the New York Stock Exchange directly instead of offering stock through an initial public offer. The stock was subject to an initial price of $45 per share set by the NYSE.
Spotify (SPOT), Slack (WORK) (which is currently being bought by Salesforce (CRM)) and Palantir all went public via direct listings as well.
"For us an open listing seemed natural. Baszucki stated that direct listing brings the entire community together and everyone uses the same price for trading at the opening.
Roblox The story of how it became the 'it game' for teens -- and a huge business
So what's next for the company now that it is publicly traded?
Roblox is still not profitable. It lost more than $253 million in 2020, up from a loss of $71 million a year earlier.
Baszucki stated that the company is looking to generate more sales from advertising. He said it will be organic. Users, for instance, can pay to wear Nike shoes in the game as opposed to seeing massive Air Jordan billboards in Roblox.
"The little amount of advertising we've been doing is authentic and immersive," Baszucki told CNN Business.
Baszucki who uses Roblox under the name builderman, said that he isn't worried about Roblox becoming a fad and losing its popularity.
He said that the game has continued to gain players even though gamers have other choices like Minecraft, Fortnite and the increasingly popular Among Us to play during their down time.
Roblox is among an increasing number of "unicorn" companies which have gone public in the past few months. This includes Poshmark and Airbnb and Bumble, as well as Bumble and Poshmark. Gaming software firm Unity also went public last September, and its stock has nearly doubled since then.
More stock market debuts are expected later this year, as well, with Instacart, Coinbase and Robinhood among the most anticipated new listings.