Days after we reported that its $630 million IPO (Initial Public Offer) was just days away, Raspberry Pi has announced an "expected intention to float" on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The announcement also contains financial reports and data for investors to inform their purchase, and gives us an insight into the company.
The announcement starts by highlighting the key facts of its history and partnerships. We learn that the low-cost, high-performance single board computer developer has sold over 60 million units since 2012 — of which 7.4 million units were sold in 2023. As for partnerships, the announcement explicitly refers to Arm and Sony, both of which have been long term partners of the Raspberry Pi.
An interesting section of the announcement states "Raspberry Pi aims to release new iterations of its core technology platform every three to four years, develop form-factor derivatives which better serve subsets of its customer base, and expand its range of first-party accessories, including cameras, displays, USB peripherals and HATs."
New models of the core Raspberry Pi arrive every 3 years or so, but the form-factor derivatives for a sub-set of customers is an interesting snippet which could lead to more bespoke products aimed at specific use cases. An example of this is the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4S, a version of the Compute Module 4 that uses the SODIMM connector of the Compute Module 1-3. This enables legacy users to upgrade the brains of its products without buying or designing all new carrier boards.
The potential offer highlights the expectations of the IPO, and that "the Company (Raspberry Pi) would be admitted to listing on the premium listing segment of the Official List of the FCA and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange." The IPO is composed of new shares to be issued by Raspberry Pi and shares to be sold by existing shareholders, including Raspberry Pi Foundation (the charity) and major Raspberry Pi shareholders. The offer is expected to be targeted at "institutional investors outside of the United States".
Under growth strategy, we get the eye-watering figure of $21.2 billion for Raspberry Pi's Total Addressable Market (TAM) in 2023. The TAM is used to reference the revenue opportunities available to a product or service. $16.3 billion of the TAM is for industrial and embedded markets — of which $11.6 billion (2023) is for the SBC market — but this is expected to grow by 10% in 2024.
The enthusiast and education markets are the "heart" of the Raspberry Pi, and this market TAM was estimated to be $3.9 billion in 2021. These markets make up a portion of the $29 billion global maker market and $6.8 billion global STEM kit market. Raspberry Pi is a popular product in the United States, China, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom. Further growth is expected in these markets.
Raspberry Pi has secured Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies") and Peel Hunt LLP ("Peel Hunt") as the global coordinators of the offer.
There is still no definite date for Raspberry Pi's IPO, but it won't be too long now.
