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Social network prepares $20bn float of shares

In 2013, Snapchat's founder Evan Spiegel turned down an offer from Mark Zuckerberg worth 'just' 3 billion dollars.

According the Wall Street Journal, the IPO was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission some weeks ago but expected to see fruition come March 2017. If everything goes as planned, it would be the largest floatation on US stock market since Alibaba’s IPO in 2014 and make its 26 year old founder Evan Spiegel one of the many billionaires of Silicon Valley.

Snapchat, which began four years ago, is a messaging app that allows users to share photos and videos with their friends; the photos and videos disappear after a few seconds but stay on the platform for 24 hours.

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The service is hugely popular with young people especially its flowering and animal caricature filters. Sixty percent of its 150 million daily users are under 24. This makes the service an idea target for advertisers. In 2013, Spiegel turned down an offer from Facebook to buy the service for, (what looks like penance now) 3 billion dollars.

Earlier this year, Snapchat introduced its first piece of hardware; Spectacles, which allows users to record what they see straight onto the platform.

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