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Roblox has filed to go public

Roblox has filed to go public

Games platform Roblox has submitted the necessary paperwork to do its initial public offering.

In its S1 filing with the SEC, the company has disclosed that it hasn't turned a profit since it was founded back in 2004. For the nine months ending September 30th, 2020, Roblox reported revenue of $589m, with bookings clocking in at $1.2bn.

The company has a history of financial losses, clocking up net loses of $97.2m and $86m for 2018 and 2019, as well as $203.2m for the nine months ending September of this year.

The platform also claims daily active users of 31.1m – and increase of 82 per cent year-on-year – with 22.2bn hours of engagement racked up for the nine-month period. That's an increase of 45 per cent, if you were curious.

These figures will no doubt be partly driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, with kids stuck indoors and looking for a way to pass the time, so investors should be wary of expecting this kind of engagement long-term.

Reports that Roblox wanted to go public broke at the start of October, before the firm announced its intentions later in the month.

At the start of 2020, the company was valued at $4bn in a funding round. It's currently unknown what kind of valuation Roblox is pursuing for its IPO, but a report earlier in the year suggested that that the firm was targeting $8bn.

Back in 2017, we at PCGamesInsider.biz spoke to the Roblox, calling the company "the biggest games platform you have (likely) never heard of." Guess the firm's subsequent success has really put us in our place!


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.