Sources: Pinterest is aiming for IPO by mid-2019, is close to ~$1B in ad sales in 2018 after hitting $500M in 2017, and now has a valuation between $13B-$15B
- Pinterest is poised to almost double revenue this year, getting close to $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Context & Ripple Effects
Pinterest's pitch to public markets was built on an ad business scaling fast: after revenue rose 58% in 2017 to $473M on nearly 250M monthly users, sources put 2018 ad sales close to $1B and the company's private valuation between $13B-$15B, with an IPO targeted by mid-2019.
The follow-on coverage shows how that plan landed: Pinterest moved from a reported $12B+ IPO plan for as soon as April 2019 to a confidential filing seeking at least $12B, then set its price range at $15-$17 a share — an $11.3B top-end valuation below the $12.3B of its last private round.
First-order effects
- Pinterest's advertisers gain a near-$1B-revenue platform competing for brand budgets alongside the larger social networks, while the company itself takes on quarterly disclosure and public-market scrutiny for the first time.
- Late-stage private investors who marked Pinterest at $12.3B face an immediate paper loss if the stock prices anywhere near the $11.3B top of the range.
Second-order effects
- Pricing below the last private round pressures Pinterest's bankers to justify the discount with its user-growth and monetization story, shifting the IPO conversation from valuation ambition to revenue-per-user proof.
- A discounted debut resets the reference price for other late-stage consumer-internet companies weighing an exit, making their own private marks harder to defend to future investors.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — rich private rounds followed by public listings at or below those marks — late-stage venture pricing loses its assumed liquidity premium, forcing growth funds to underwrite exits more conservatively.
- Consumer internet companies increasingly reach the public markets as mature ad businesses rather than story stocks, tying their valuations to monetization metrics like revenue per active device instead of user-count narratives.
The trend: Growth-stage consumer internet companies are reaching IPO with strong ad-revenue trajectories but accepting public valuations at or below their final private marks, narrowing the gap between private and public pricing.