When was the Reddit IPO?
Reddit priced its initial public offering on 20 March 2024 and its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange the next day, Thursday 21 March 2024, under the ticker RDDT [1][3]. The shares were priced at $34, the top of the $31 to $34 range the company had set, which valued Reddit at about $6.4 billion [3]. The offering raised $748 million, according to The New York Times [3].
It had taken a long time to get there. Reddit was almost 19 years old when it listed, and the four people who built it had each left and, in three cases, come back. The infographic by CoffeeSpace follows that path from the founders’ student days to the listing.
How did Reddit’s shares do on the first day?
The shares opened at $47 and closed the first day at $50.44, a rise of 48% on the $34 IPO price [4]. That put Reddit’s market capitalisation at about $9.5 billion at the close, a little below the $10 billion valuation it had reached in a private funding round in 2021 [4].
Reddit did something unusual with the offering: it set aside up to 8% of its shares for Reddit users and moderators, so the people who use the site could buy at the IPO price [4]. On the first day, the WallStreetBets forum, famous for the 2021 GameStop share frenzy, was busy discussing the stock [4].
The IPO was also a test for the wider market. Only just over 100 companies went public in the US in 2023, about a quarter of the 2021 number, so investors and start-ups watched Reddit closely as a sign of whether tech listings were coming back [3][4].
Reddit’s timeline from 2005 to the IPO
Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian were roommates at the University of Virginia. In spring 2005 they went to a talk by Paul Graham in Boston, who invited them to apply to his new start-up programme, Y Combinator [2]. Their first idea, ordering food by text message, was turned down, but Graham liked the idea of a “front page of the internet”, and they were accepted into Y Combinator’s first batch [2]. Here are the main events since then, from Wikipedia’s Timeline of Reddit, the source CoffeeSpace used, and its Reddit article [1][2].
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 2005 | Huffman and Ohanian launch Reddit with Y Combinator funding |
| November 2005 | Christopher Slowe joins as the first employee |
| Late 2005 | Reddit merges with Aaron Swartz’s company, Infogami |
| October 2006 | Condé Nast buys Reddit |
| January 2007 | Swartz is fired |
| October 2009 | Huffman and Ohanian leave |
| 2010 | Slowe leaves |
| September 2011 | Reddit becomes operationally independent of Condé Nast |
| September 2014 | Reddit raises $50 million in a round led by Sam Altman |
| November 2014 | Ohanian returns as executive chairman |
| July 2015 | Huffman returns as chief executive |
| 2017 | Slowe returns as chief technology officer |
| June 2020 | Ohanian resigns from the board |
| February 2024 | Google data licensing deal, about $60 million a year |
| 21 March 2024 | Shares start trading on the NYSE as RDDT |
| 18 August 2026 | Reddit joins the S&P 500 |
Sources: Wikipedia, Timeline of Reddit and Reddit [1][2].
Reddit in 2005 and the Infogami merger
Reddit launched in June 2005, built by Huffman in the Lisp programming language [2]. The site looked empty at first, so the founders created hundreds of fake accounts to post links and make it look busier [2]. Comments were added in December 2005 [1].
Infogami was Aaron Swartz’s start-up. Between November 2005 and January 2006 it merged with Reddit, and Swartz became an equal owner of the combined company, Not A Bug [2]. Swartz then helped rewrite Reddit in Python using web.py, a framework he had written [2]. This is why Swartz is often called a Reddit co-founder, although Ohanian has said it is more accurate to say Reddit acquired Swartz’s company six months after launch [2]. The infographic dates the merger to December 2005; Wikipedia gives the wider window of November 2005 to January 2006.
The Condé Nast years and the founders leaving
In October 2006, only 16 months after launch, Condé Nast, the publisher of Wired, bought Reddit for a reported $10 million to $20 million, and the team moved to San Francisco [2]. Swartz did not settle into the corporate setting and was fired in January 2007 [1].
Huffman and Ohanian left in October 2009. Huffman went on to co-found the travel site Hipmunk, and Ohanian started Breadpig [1]. Slowe followed them to Hipmunk [2]. In 2010 Reddit’s traffic more than tripled while the founders were away, and by February 2011 it reached 1 billion page views a month [1]. In September 2011 Reddit became operationally independent of Condé Nast, free to hire its own chief executive and sell its own advertising, and it later became an independent subsidiary of Condé Nast’s parent, Advance Publications [1][2].
Advance still owned about 30% of Reddit after the IPO, the largest stake, ahead of Tencent at about 11% and Sam Altman at about 9% [2].
The founders come back
Reddit went through several chief executives in the early 2010s, including Yishan Wong from 2012 to 2014 and Ellen Pao from 2014 to 2015 [1]. Ohanian returned as executive chairman in November 2014. When Pao resigned on 10 July 2015, after a user revolt over the firing of a popular employee, Huffman took over as chief executive, a job he still holds [1][2]. Slowe rejoined as chief technology officer in 2017 [2].
Ohanian left again in June 2020, resigning from the board and asking to be replaced by a Black candidate; Michael Seibel, then chief executive of Y Combinator, took the seat [2]. That is why only Huffman and Slowe were still at Reddit when it went public, and why the IPO filing did not list Ohanian as a major shareholder [3]. Swartz, the fourth person in the story, died in January 2013 [8].
The Google AI deal before the IPO
A month before listing, in February 2024, Reddit agreed a deal with Google worth about $60 million a year to license its users’ posts for training Google’s AI models [2]. A similar deal with OpenAI followed [2]. Data licensing gave investors a new reason to value Reddit’s archive of conversations, and Wikipedia reports that these licensing deals, which run until 2027, now bring in about 10% of the company’s revenue [2].
How has Reddit stock done since the IPO?
Overall the shares have risen, with big swings along the way. The business grew fast after listing: revenue reached $2.20 billion in 2025, with net income of $530 million, against a net loss of $90 million in 2023 [2][3]. It joined the S&P 500 on 18 August 2026 [1].
The shares are volatile. On 30 October 2026 they fell about 30% after the company said its search traffic in the third quarter was “down meaningfully” [6]. At the close on 2 November 2026 Reddit was worth about $17.6 billion, or $90.97 a share, about 2.7 times the $6.4 billion IPO valuation, but down about 56% on a year earlier [5]. Share prices change daily, so check a current quote before relying on these figures.
Questions about the Reddit IPO 2024
What was Reddit’s IPO price?
$34 a share, priced on 20 March 2024 at the top of its $31 to $34 range [3].
Who owns the most of Reddit?
Advance Publications, the parent of Condé Nast, with about 30%. Tencent holds about 11% and Sam Altman about 9% [2]. Steve Huffman held 3.3% at the IPO [3].
Who founded Reddit?
Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit in June 2005. Aaron Swartz joined when his company Infogami merged with Reddit later that year, and is often counted as a co-founder [2].
How much did Condé Nast pay for Reddit?
A reported $10 million to $20 million, in October 2006 [2]. The New York Times put it at $10 million [3].
Is Reddit in the S&P 500?
Yes. Reddit was added to the S&P 500 index on 18 August 2026 [1].
Sources
- Wikipedia, Timeline of Reddit, the source named on the infographic.
- Wikipedia, Reddit.
- The New York Times, Reddit Prices I.P.O. at $34 a Share, in a Positive Sign for Tech, 20 March 2024.
- The New York Times, Reddit Rises 48% in First Day of Trading, 21 March 2024.
- Stock Analysis, Reddit (RDDT) market cap, read 3 November 2026.
- Deadline, Reddit Shares Plunge 30% After Company Says Its Q3 Search Traffic Was “Down Meaningfully”, 30 October 2026.
- CoffeeSpace, creator of the infographic on this page. The original post could not be found.
- Wikipedia, Aaron Swartz.
Last reviewed 3 November 2026
