A Californian high school that invested in Snapchat’s parent company five years ago has reportedly made $24m, or more than £19m, from selling a portion of its shares when the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange this week.

Saint Francis High School in Mountain View made the investment at the suggestion of Barry Eggers, a partner at a local investment firm called Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Mr Eggers was introduced to Snapchat by his daughter Natalie, a pupil at Saint Francis High School, and subsequently made a visit to Stanford University to meet the app’s founders, Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy.

Ten days later, Lightspeed invested $485,000 in Snap, Snapchat’s owner. Mr Eggers encouraged Saint Francis High School to invest a further $15,000 from a special development fund set up by a group of parents and the school's former president, according to the BBC.

Stocks in Snap rocketed by 44 per cent over the course of Thursday, the company’s first day of public trading, from $17 to $24.48.

According to Reuters, an intra-day high of $26.05 on Thursday temporarily gave Snap a market value of $29.1bn.

“It’s been amazing for us to watch how far Evan and Bobby and Snap have come since that kitchen table conversation between my daughter and me,” Mr Eggers wrote in a blog post published on Medium.

The BBC reported that Saint Francis High School sold many of its shares for an approximate total of $24m when markets opened on Thursday.

Simon Chiu, the school’s president, broke the “momentous news” in a letter to parents, thanking Mr Eggers for providing “a unique investment opportunity”.

The school, which currently charges tuition of $17,370 a year according to its website, plans to use the return on its investment to “make Catholic education more affordable and accessible to our community”.

The world’s most valuable brands Show all 10 1 /10 The world’s most valuable brands The world’s most valuable brands 1st - Google Google replaced Apple as the world’s most valuable brand, with a brand value of $109.5bn, according to Brand Finance The world’s most valuable brands 2nd - Apple Apple’s brand value declined from $145.9bn to $107.1bn in 2016 The world’s most valuable brands 3rd - Amazon Amazon's brand value rose from $69.6bn to $106.4bn in 2016 Amazon The world’s most valuable brands 4th - At&t Of the 40 telecoms brands in the ranking, AT&T in 2016 overtook Verizon as the most valuable brand rising to $87bn from $59.9bn the year before The world’s most valuable brands 5th - Microsoft Microsoft's brand value rose marginally from $67.3bn to $76.3bn in 2016 The world’s most valuable brands 6th - Samsung Amazon's brand value rose from $58.6bn to $66.2bn The world’s most valuable brands 7th - Verizon Verizon's brand value inched up from $63.1bn to $65.9bn The world’s most valuable brands 8th - Walmart Walmart's brand value rose from $53.6bn to $62.5bn The world’s most valuable brands 9th - Facebook Facebook's brand value increased sharply from $34bn to just shy of $62bn The world’s most valuable brands 10th - ICBC ICBC saw its brand value rise to $47.8bn from $36.3bn. It was the most valuabe financial brand in the world in 2016 replacing Wells Fargo

Mr Chiu’s letter made no mention of how the remaining shares will be managed, but hopes will be high at Saint Francis High School that Snap’s stock price will continue to rise.