Snapchat aims to raise $4 billion when it IPOs next year

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Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., is aiming to raise "as much as $4 billion" when it goes public early next year, according to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg's Alex Barinka and Sarah Frier.

A source previously told Business Insider that Snap plans to go public by late March at around a $25 billion valuation, but now Bloomberg is saying that number could swell as high as $35 billion or even $40 billion.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will lead the deal, while JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Allen & Co., Barclays, and Credit Suisse will be joint bookrunners.

The Los Angeles-based company last raised $1.81 billion in private funding in May, which pegged its valuation at between $18 billion and $22 billion.

Raising $4 billion on the public market would put Snap well behind Facebook's $16 billion IPO raise in 2012 and ahead of Twitter's $1.82 billion in 2013.

Snap has told investors that it expects to make between $250 million and $350 million in advertising revenue this year. A recent eMarketer report predicted the company would near $1 billion in revenue in 2017 — meaning an IPO that valued the company at $35 billion would be 35 times its projected revenue numbers.

By comparison, Facebook was estimated to make $5 billion in ad revenue the same year it went public at a $104 billion valuation.

With annual revenue under $1 billion now, Snap could file its Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the JOBS Act. In such a scenario, the initial filing would be confidential.

Snap wasn't immediately available to comment.

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