Inside Snap Inc.: From 2011 to Now Into a $2.4 billion business
Startup Type:
Headquarter: Santa Monica, USA
Current Status: Active (public since 2017)
Founders: Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown
Founded Year: 2011
Investors: Alibaba Group, Benchmark Capital, Tencent Holdings
Funding Raised: $2.4 billion
What Is the business model of Snap Inc.?
Social media company offering Snapchat, a messaging app with disappearing photos and videos, monetized via advertising and sponsored content
How Snap Inc. got started?
Founded as a Stanford class project to share self-deleting photos, launched from Spiegel’s father’s living room in 2011, initially called Picaboo
what growth strategy has Snap Inc. followed?
Focused on the youth demographic with innovative features like AR lenses and Stories to drive viral growth, rejecting a $3B acquisition offer to remain independent
what are the top products/features of Snap Inc.
Snapchat messaging app, Spectacles camera glasses, Bitmoji personalized avatars
what was the biggest challenge faced by Snap Inc.?
Copied relentlessly by larger rivals (e.g. Facebook’s Instagram Stories) and faced user backlash to a 2018 app redesign that threatened engagement