GoPro, Inc., the company behind the tiny cameras that turn everyday shenanigans and impressive feats of human endeavor into first-person films, went public on the Nasdaq Thursday after an IPO that raised $427 million for the company. (Via Flickr / Tom Hart, Gordon Tarpley)
And on Thursday, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company saw stock prices rise more than 30 percent, going from $24 a share to as high as $31 a share. So, what's behind the company's success?
Well, for one thing, some of the videos people are making with GoPro cameras are pretty rad. GoPro published this video to its YouTube account Thursday showing people all over the world expressing themselves through one-of-a-kind videos.
There was also this — Felix Baumgartner's jump from 24 miles above Earth in October of 2012. Of course he had a GoPro strapped to his suit.
MarketWatch reports the company's nearly $3 billion valuation and "real investor appetite ... is based on the potential to monetize the sharing of all the mind-bending videos filmed by its customers."
GoPro's success has made its IPO the largest from a consumer-electronics company in 23 years. According to The Wall Street Journal, battery company Duracell raised $433 million in its 1991 debut.
But despite GoPro users uploading almost three years of video to the Internet in 2013, CNET reports the company's growth is slowing down, according to their S-1 filing..
"The first quarter of 2014, GoPro recorded $235.7 million in sales, an 8 percent decline compared with the same period the previous year. GoPro attributed that decline to production issues."
According to Mashable, GoPro laid out other risk factors in its public offering documents, including dependence on its CEO and founder, Nicholas Woodman, and dependence on revenue from a competitive hardware market.
But David Menlow, CEO of IPOfinancial.com, told CNN GoPro is still a "hot brand," and they've got one-up on the competition: "First into a market usually gets the largest market share."
Wiredreports GoPro's next venture is in media. The company is reportedly planning to launch a channel on Xbox Live and will begin earning advertising revenue on that channel — along with its Virgin America and YouTube channels — this year.
