SNAP INC.
CASE STUDY
THAT
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THOUGHT
PROVOKING
IDEA
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The idea behind Snapchat came in mind of two
Stanford University students who felt emoticons
weren't sufficient to transmit the emotion someone
might wish could be sent with a text message.
But they were nervous that a quick snap of a cell
phone camera showing a particular emotion might end
up being inappropriate for a social media site where
the picture will be posted for the whole world to see.
So, they created the concept of time-limited
photo-sharing which further took form of Picaboo in the
form of an iOS application.
It was later renamed to Snapchat and released for
Android too.
FOUNDERS
Evan Spiegel : Spiegel left Stanford to focus on Snapchat shortly before
completing his degree By the end of 2012, Spiegel's Snapchat app had
reached 1 million daily active users. He later completed his remaining
credits and graduated in 2018
Bobby Murphy : Murphy was recruited by Spiegel after they finished
working on a failed startup called Future Freshman, a website that
helped high school kids get advice when applying to colleges. In 2011,
Murphy co-founded a disappearing-image messaging app called
Picaboo. The name was later changed to Snapchat. After graduating
from Stanford, Murphy spent a year working as a software engineer at
Revel Systems (an iPad point of sale system for restaurants). Until
Snapchat could secure venture capital funding, he used half of his
paycheck to cover the cost of Snapchat's server bills.
ABOUT
SNAPCHAT
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Snapchat is a multi-media instant messaging
service and software created in the United States
by Snap Inc.
One of the main characteristics of Snapchat is that
images and messages are frequently only
accessible for a brief period of time before they are
no longer viewable by their recipients.
The app has changed from its initial focus on
peer-to-peer photo sharing to now including users'
"Stories" comprising 24 hours of chronological
content as well as "Discover," which allows
businesses to offer short-form, ad-supported
content.
Additionally, it enables users to save pictures in a
"my eyes only" password-protected section.
FUNDING
INVESTOR
TRANSACTION NAME
FUND RAISED
VALUATION
Lightspeed Ventures
Seed Funding
$ 485,000
Not evaluated
Benchmark Capital
Series-A
$ 12.5 M
$ 60-70 M
Institutional Venture
Partner
Series-B
$ 80 M
$ 800 M
Coatue Management
Series-C
$ 50 M
Not evaluated
23 combined investors
Series-D
$ 485 M
$ 10 B
Alibaba
Series-E
$ 200 M
$ 15 B
18 combined investors
Series-F
$ 1.8 B
Not evaluated
SHARE
HOLDERS
Top 3 individual shareholders:
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Robert Murphy owns a total of 80.7 million Snap shares,
representing 5.4% of the company's total shares outstanding.
Evan Spiegel owns a total of 46.3 million Snap shares,
representing 3.1% of the company's total shares outstanding.
Jeremi Gorman owns a total of 2.0 million Snap shares,
representing 0.1% of the company's total shares outstanding.
Top 3 institutional shareholders:
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T. Rowe Price Associates owns 126.2 million shares of Snap,
representing 10.1%.
Vanguard Group owns 75.2 million shares of Snap, representing
6.0% of total shares outstanding.
Edgewood Management owns 62.2 million shares of Snap,
representing 5.0% of total shares outstanding.
FEATURES
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Snap Map
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The Discover feature
allows users to see
content from popular
media channels
Snap Map allows users to share
their location in real time with
anyone on their Snapchat friend
list and see the locations of their
friends who do the same.
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Snap Streak
A flame emoji and a number will appear next
to the users' names to show how long the
streak has been maintained. Maintaining
streaks is very important to teens because
streaks allow kids to interact socially and feel
part of something many of their peers are
doing.
Discover
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Avatar
It lets users create their
Avatars which are quite
popular among
teenagers and fascinate
them.
Other features of a case study includes
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SWOT analysis
USP
Revenue model
Market analysis
Competitive landscape
Future projections
Your views