Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, March 2 2017

• Snap Prices I.P.O. at $17 a Share, Valuing Company at $24 Billion: Millennials, those 14 to 35 years old, may be as exuberantly hyped a demographic as any in recent memory. That generation has now helped power one of the biggest and most eagerly awaited stock market debuts in recent memory, making billionaires of the founders of the disappearing-message service Snapchat. Investors, attracted by Snapchat’s hold on its millennial users — who check the app on average more than 18 times a day — flocked to the initial public offering, pushing the parent company, Snap Inc., to a valuation of nearly $24 billion. The stock sale sets Snap up as the most valuable American technology company to go public since Facebook nearly five years ago. And it may herald a coming wave of unicorns — technology start-ups valued at more than $1 billion by private investors — that are expected to hit the public markets in the next few years. Snap’s offering was priced on Wednesday at $17 a share — a dollar more than the previously expected pricing range. The pricing came on a day when the stock market surged to another high, fed by raised expectations of tax cuts, looser regulations and higher interest rates under the Trump administration. Shares of the social media companies Facebook and Twitter also rose. Those buying into Snap’s offering did so even as warning signs have flashed over the company, based in California. It lost more than $500 million last year, and its explosive user growth appears to have hit a speed bump. And in a decision that has angered some large investors, the shares will have no voting rights, leaving control in the hands of the company’s founders, who can retain that power for years even after leaving Snap. Yet when Snap begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, under the ticker name SNAP, it will command a lofty valuation multiple even richer than that of Facebook, which earned $10 billion last year. With a market value of almost $24 billion, including unvested stock options and grants, the company is now setting itself up with little room for error.

• Facebook's Oculus cuts price of virtual reality set by $200: Facebook Inc's virtual reality unit Oculus has cut $200 from the total price of its flagship hardware set, in a bid to expand the system's base of video game players, the company said on Wednesday. The virtual reality headset Rift and the motion controllers Touch will together retail for $598, Jason Rubin, Oculus' vice president of content, said in a statement. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus in 2014, believing it to be the next major computing platform. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said that Oculus would spend $500 million to fund virtual reality content development. Oculus and other virtual reality makers are struggling to make their products competitive with other gaming systems that sell for much less.

• Instacart In Talks to Raise About $400 Million: Grocery-delivery startup Instacart is said to be in talks with investors to raise about $400 million, more than two years after its last major round of funding.The new funding would value the San Francisco company at $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The startup, which uses workers to pick groceries off the shelves of stores such as Whole Foods and deliver them to customers' doorsteps, previously raised funding in January 2015 at a $2 billion valuation. Sequoia Capital, which already has a stake in Instacart, is likely to lead the round, one of the people said. A year ago, Instacart Chief Executive Officer Apoorva Mehta told Bloomberg that the company had a plan for becoming sustainable, and he didn't expect to raise funding again in the future.