High school makes $24 million from Snap IPO

SAN FRANCISCO - A California high school has made millions of dollars from initial public offering of shares in Snap (SNAP), the company behind the Snapchat photo messaging application.

The board of the Saint Francis high school in Mountain View agreed to invest $15,000 in seed money in Snap in 2012, when the company was just getting started.

They had been invited to do so by one of the student’s parents, the high school president says in a letter issued to the school community Thursday. 

That parent, Barry Eggers, is a partner at Lightspeed Venture partners, the venture capital firm that invested in Snapchat in 2012 when the company was just getting started. He is also the head of the Saint Francis High School investment fund.

The school held onto the investment until this week, when Snap shares sold for $17 each in an IPO. The share price rocketed another 44 percent higher when trading began Thursday.

The school was quoted by media including website Quartz as saying they sold two-thirds of their shares at $17 each, to raise $24 million.

“The school’s investment in Snap - which this morning announced the completion of its IPO - has matured and given us a significant boost,” said the high school president, Simon Chiu, in the letter.

Chiu said none of the school’s nearly 1,800 students were involved in the investment venture.