SAN JOSE, Calif. _ The red-hot IPO debut of vanishing-photo superstar Snap this week not only placed the Southern California startup at a $35 billion value. It also made Mountain View, Calif.'s Saint Francis high school $23 million richer.
The Catholic school had invested $15,000 in Snap's early round of funding way back in 2012. By the time shares in Snap had finished trading Thursday afternoon, that pittance had turned into a big fat pile of shareholder value.
The good news reached the school's community members via a letter sent out Thursday from school president Simon Chiu. In it, he said the Snap investment was the idea of Saint Francis parent Barry Eggers, a founding partner of venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. For Eggers, the father of two kids, this move was an in-your-face no-brainer: the children were clearly hooked on this new smartphone app that sends and receives pictures that quickly disappear forever. There had to be something to it, Eggers figured.
While Lightspeed scooped up a Silicon Valley-sized serving of shares with its own $485,000 investment, Saint Francis' 15 grand meant the school suddenly owned about 2 million shares of a very hot stock. And it sold two-thirds of them right out of the box, each share getting $17, translating into a mega-win for the school.
"While the full impact has yet to be realized, the return on this investment will allow us to accelerate the goals of our strategic plan," Chiu wrote in the letter, "which emphasizes our commitment to make Catholic education more affordable and accessible to our community, recruit and retain outstanding faculty and staff, and develop innovative programs and facilities."
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