Roblox anticipates Direct Listing, raises $520 million

Roblox raised $520 million in a private financing round on Jan. 6, resulting in a purchase price of $45.00 per share. Separately, the gaming company announced plans to go public through a direct listing, shifting from the IPO plan reported last month.

After the private financing round, the Roblox Corporation is now valued at $29.5 billion. Led by Altimeter Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group, participation came from the Investment Group of Santa Barabara and Warner Music Group.

The Roblox company also plans to file for a direct listing to go public on the stock market. The company had carefully watched Spotify and Slack go public through direct listings, and it seems they've decided to follow suit.

It appears the wait to go public will be well worth the company's interests, as approximately 190 million users were active in Dec. 2020 alone, according to RTrack. This marks a 70 million increase from Dec. 2019 to Dec. 2020. CNBC reported that "revenue in the third quarter jumped 91% from a year earlier to $242.2 million." Clearly, the kid's gaming platform shows no signs of losing popularity.

Dave Baszucki, CEO and co-founder of Roblox, recently doubled down of the Metaverse, the virtual shared space that combines the Internet, virtual worlds, and augmented reality. Although he believes the Metaverse will extend beyond video games in 2021, Baszucki echoed Roblox's plans at the private funding round. The newly acquired funding enables the company to double down on the Roblox's mission: to build shared experiences through the gaming platform.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Altimeter, Dragoneer and the other new investors,” said David Baszucki, CEO and co-founder of Roblox. “We look forward to working with all of them as we continue our mission to build a human co-experience platform that enables shared experience, from play to work, and learning among billions of users.”

There is no scheduled date for Roblox going public, but it is expected to occur this year. We'll report back when more information is announced.