LOS ANGELES – Shares of Snap Inc. fell Monday following last week’s explosive bow on the New York Stock Exchange.
The parent company of the Snapchat app saw its shares close down about 12 percent Monday to $23.80 for a recent market value of $28.48 billion. Trading volume also crept back down from the average since its debut.
Snap last Wednesday priced its shares at $17 and began trading Thursday, closing the day up 44 percent.
Snap fancies itself a camera company and began selling its first physical product in the camera-enabled Spectacles sunglasses last year. The company’s 2016 sales were up 600 percent to $404.5 million.
NBCUniversal, part of Comcast Corp., put skin in the game to the tune of a $500 million investment in Snap’s IPO in a bid to boost its presence in digital media. In July NBCUniversal acquired SportsEngine, a seller of sport apps and software that helps coaches, parents, administrators and others connect and keep in touch with one another. That follows investments in Vox Media of $200 million and the doubling of a $200 million investment in BuzzFeed in November.
The Snap IPO received mixed reactions. It was hailed by several tech firm executives who see implications for the industry locally with what they believe will lead to an infusion of new capital into the market. Others saw the company as overvalued, while another contingent of Venice locals came out the first day of trading to protest the company’s headquarters in the Los Angeles neighborhood arguing the tech firm’s presence has squeezed out mom-and-pop businesses in the process.