Snap Inc, the owner of Snapchat, is set to make its debut on the New York Stock Exchange today with a better-than-expected market valuation of $24bn (£19bn).

The company has priced 200 million shares at $17 apiece, with investors demand helping the tech start-up to command considerably more than the $14 to $16 a share it was hoping for.

Snap's flotation has excited Wall Street. An estimated 158 million people use its messaging app every day - sending photos to friends which disappear a few seconds later.

Crucially, Snapchat is beloved by teenagers and 20-somethings who use the app's filters to add special effects to their selfies - with bunny ears, princess tiaras, face swapping and vomiting rainbows among the most popular.

Image: Snapchat's quirky filters have gained millions of younger fans

The valuation means Snap is worth $13bn (£10.6bn) more than Twitter, but the fledgling social network is way behind Facebook, which has a value of $395bn (£321bn).


Although many early investors will be popping champagne corks after becoming overnight millionaires - with Snap's 26-year-old co-founder Evan Spiegel landing a 17% stake worth $4bn (£3.26bn) - the company has many hurdles to overcome.

Snap's growth has slowed considerably since the Facebook-owned app Instagram cloned a key feature of Snapchat called "Stories", which allows a user's favourite photos and videos to be played on a loop to their friends for 24 hours.

Whereas Snapchat added 36 million daily active users in the first half of 2016, this slowed to 15 million in the second half of the year.

Image: Snap's co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are in for a multi-million dollar payday

Then there is the issue of Snap's financial performance. Even though it has enjoyed a seven-fold increase in revenue, net losses soared by 38% last year because of its bigger rivals.

The company's IPO is also unusual because new investors will have no voting power - with its co-founders continuing to maintain tight control over its future.

Snap has brushed off concerns about slowing growth by pointing to how long its users spend on the app, as well as the revenue opportunities that will arise through the trend of young people using video to interact with each other instead of text.

Image: Snapchat allows users to send photos to friends which self-destruct within seconds

But many of the young people who currently use Snapchat say they are finding it harder to fit in with their everyday life - as keeping up with friends and celebrities is too time-consuming.

One student said: "It got to the point that if I wanted to keep up with everyone's story, I'd have to sit on my phone and watch it for 25 minutes."