Who Owns Snapchat : If you’re one of the 100 million daily users of Snapchat, chances are you’ve wondered who owns this popular messaging app. Is it just another social media network like Facebook or Twitter? How did it get started, and who took the risk to invest in this venture? Does this company do well financially? Will it be around for the long term?
These are all important questions that we can answer in this guide to help you learn about Snapchat. By the end, you’ll have a complete understanding of what makes Snapchat such an innovative company, and what makes it so popular with its users!
So, Who Owns Snapchat?
While Snapchat’s official owner remains Snap Inc., Snap Inc. is itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of a larger company called Snap Group. Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are in charge of all three entities, but here’s where things get a little complicated: it appears that some percentage of each share belongs to Lightspeed Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital and General Catalyst Partners.
In other words, these VC firms hold small portions of shares in both Snap Group and Snap Inc. According to The Wall Street Journal, if you could combine these two entities into one company and then multiply that value by $30 billion (the approximate valuation of these two firms combined), you’d have an idea of what stock ownership in all three looks like today.
The Early Days of Snap Inc.
Who Owns Snapchat? – Snap Inc. was founded in 2011 by three students who attended Stanford University. The co-founders were Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. Reggie Brown had helped Spiegel and Murphy develop an idea for a disappearing picture app that was originally called Picaboo.
Later, Bobby Murphy changed his last name to Spiegel so they all have common surnames and so that it would not appear as if any of them own more shares than another.
Since then, all three of them have been credited as founders of Snap Inc., which is now known as Snap Incorporated (NYSE:SNAP). The corporation currently holds all rights for what has become one of social media’s most popular apps: Snapchat!
A Brief Timeline of Snap Inc.
Who Owns Snapchat : Snap Inc. is a company that consists of three pieces: messaging app Snapchat, augmented reality camera Spectacles, and social networking platform Bitmoji. Although Snap Inc. sounds like an incredibly cool job title, in actuality it’s simply what has become of SnapChat as a result of its 2016 IPO.
When Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy founded Snap Inc., they had every intention of keeping their products separate—but not for long! From changing names to new logos and merging teams, here’s how each piece got incorporated into Snap Inc.
The Leadership Team Behind the Scenes
Who Owns Snapchat : Evan Spiegel is co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Spiegel, who previously worked as a product manager at Redlick and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, started Snapchat with Bobby Murphy while he was still attending Stanford University.
Also serving on Snap’s leadership team are Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Vollero. Spiegel has been called one of The 25 Most Influential Teens by Time magazine while Murphy made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2015 for his contributions to Facebook’s augmented reality platform, AR Studio.
Khan was included on Business Insider’s list of 50 Most Powerful People in Mobile for being one of Snapchat’s first employees and helping grow it into a billion-dollar company.
Why did Evan Spiegel’s Brother Leave Facebook for Snap Inc.?
Who Owns Snapchat : With Facebook, you can’t be Evan Spiegel. With Snap Inc., you can do anything… except trade stocks. It was only a matter of time before someone in Evan Spiegel’s family decided they wanted in on all that Snap Inc. money… and it looks like it’ll be his brother Tyler.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Tyler Spiegel is leaving Facebook after two years with Mark Zuckerberg’s company, making way for a potential role at Snap Inc. as head of creative or strategic partnerships. Though that might not sound very exciting, considering what Snapchat has been up to lately (e.g., turning down $3 billion from Facebook), maybe he’ll get more creative freedom than anyone could have imagined … including Tyler himself:
In an interview last year with TechCrunch, he said he would have never left Google unless he saw something even better and bigger than Google+ coming out of its labs. So yeah, probably something exciting!
As far as whether any other Spiegel siblings will leave their jobs for Snap Inc.—you know how Silicon Valley is—the answer seems pretty clear: Not likely.
How Does Snap Inc. Make Money?
Snap Inc. isn’t just a social media company—it’s a camera company. Snap has already released its first product, called Spectacles. These are video-recording sunglasses that sync with your phone via Bluetooth and send pictures to your Snapchat account as Snaps.
Snap sells Spectacles for $129 and it’s designed only for iOS, but it is coming out with an Android version soon. This proves how committed Snap is to becoming a hardware brand.
If you own shares of SNAP stock, then there’s even more reason to be optimistic about long-term growth potential. So how exactly does Snapchat make money? Well… let me tell you!
Will Snap Inc. Go Public in 2022?
Until now, private-company shares have mostly been out of reach for most investors. That could be about to change if Snap Inc., parent company of social network and messaging app Snapchat, follows through on its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2018. If it does happen, how can you get your hands on some Snap stock? And what exactly is Snap anyway? Let’s start with some background…
Where do Snaps Come From, Anyway?
When you send a snap, it comes from your phone’s SD card by default. However, if you live in one of our supported countries and have set up Mobile Backup, then your snaps are sent from our secure servers. For more information on what happens when you press that little yellow button, check out our FAQ.
If you’re looking for more in-depth info about how exactly we work, we’d recommend visiting Snapchat’s Developer Portal and reading through some of their technical documentation as well as other third party sources on cloud storage solutions.
