Who would have thought that Raspberry Pi, the maker of cheap, single-board computers, would become a public company? And yet, this is exactly what’s happening this week as Raspberry Pi priced its IPO this morning at £2.80 per share, which values the company at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate.
Shortly after that, shares popped to £3.70 — that represents a nice 32% jump. It means that Raspberry Pi could end up raising more than $200 million during its IPO process.
If you’re looking to buy Raspberry Pi shares as a retail investor, this isn’t possible just yet. For now, trading is only available to certain institutional shareholders. Retail investors will be able to buy and sell shares starting on Friday.
This listing is also a win for the London stock market. While Deliveroo and Wise are both trading in London, many British tech companies choose to go public in the U.S. on NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange as these stock markets are more liquid.
Raspberry Pi is mostly known for its tiny computers that can be programmed to perform all sorts of tasks without spending too much money and requiring too much power. These Arm-based computers became particularly popular among tech hobbyists who wanted to create media servers, retro game consoles, interactive dashboards, robotics projects and more.
More recently, many industrial companies started integrating the Raspberry Pi in their devices and facilities. The company reports that the industrial and embedded segment represents 72% of its sales.
Raspberry Pi has sold 60 million units since its inception. In 2023 alone, Raspberry Pi generated $266 million in revenue and $66 million in gross profit.
Raspberry Pi Ltd, the public company, is the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Foundation wants to make it easier to learn coding through a low-cost, programmable computer. It also remains the main shareholder of Raspberry Pi Ltd.
Other strategic shareholders in the company include Arm and Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, a subsidiary of Sony that makes image sensors for smartphones and other components. Arm previously announced that it intended to increase its stake in Raspberry Pi with the public listing.
