Enlarge / Isn't it a strange fate that we have to suffer so much fear and doubt for such a small thing? Such a little thing!
Andrew Cunningham
Raspberry Pi's business is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) in London. CEO Eben Upton tells Ars that the nonprofit portion of the Raspberry Pi could grow “at least twofold” in the event of an IPO. And while it's “an understandable thing” that Raspberry Pi enthusiasts might be concerned, “even though I'm involved in running the thing, I don't expect people to notice a change in the way we work.”
CEO Eben Upton confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg News that Raspberry Pi has appointed bankers from London firms Peel Hunt and Jefferies to prepare for “the reopening of the IPO market.”
Raspberry had previously raised money from Sony and semiconductor and software design firm ARM and sought public investment. Upton denied or did not entirely deny rumors of an IPO in 2021, and Bloomberg reported that Raspberry Pi was considering an IPO in early 2022. After ARM took a minority stake in the company in November 2023, Raspberry Pi was valued at around £400 million more than 500 million dollars.
Given the company's gradual recovery from pandemic-related supply chain shortages and the success of the Raspberry Pi 5 launch, the company's IPO is likely to go beyond this level, even if the listing is in the UK rather than the usual US. Upton told The Register that “the company is in much better shape than the last time we looked at it.” [an IPO]. We stopped partly because the markets got bad. And we stopped in part because our business became unpredictable.”
News of Raspberry Pi Ltd's possible conversion from the private arm of the education-focused Raspberry Pi Foundation into a publicly traded company committed to generating profits for shareholders received expected response on Reddit, Hacker News and elsewhere. Many pointed with concern to the company's decision to prioritize small business customers who need Pi boards for their businesses, hinting at what investors might prioritize. Many expressed confusion about the commercial entity's relationship with the foundation and what an IPO meant for that arrangement.
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Upton saw comments following the Bloomberg story and said he understood concerns about a possible change in mission or change in pricing structure. “It’s a good thing that people care about us,” Upton said in a telephone interview. However, he noted that Raspberry Pi's business arm has had both strategic and private investors in its history, as well as a majority shareholder in the foundation (which owned 75 percent of the shares in 2016), and that he sees no changes to what Pi has built.
“What a Raspberry Pi [builds] “These are the products we want to buy and then we sell them to people like us,” Upton said. “Of course, even though I'm involved in this, I can't imagine an environment where the hobbyists won't be great.”
The IPO is “about the foundation,” Upton said, with that nonprofit arm selling part of its controlling interest in the business unit to raise funds and expand. (“We haven't come up with a new way for a nonprofit to do an IPO, no,” he noted.) The foundation had previously been funded by dividends from the corporate side, Upton said. “We are making this transaction, and the proceeds from this transaction will enable the foundation to train teachers, run clubs, expand programs and … do these things at least by a factor of two. That’s what I’m most looking forward to.”
Asked about concerns that Raspberry Pi might turn its attention to higher-volume customers after bringing in public investors, Upton said there will be “no change” to the type of products Pi makes and that manufacturers “for us “culturally important”. Upton noted that, aside from a single retail store, Raspberry Pi does not sell Pis directly but rather through resellers. The margin structures at Raspberry Pi have “stayed the same the whole time,” said Upton, and should remain so even after the IPO.
The Raspberry Pi's lower-cost products, such as the Zero 2 W and Pico, fulfill the project's educational and tinkering tasks, now with far better performance and lower prices than the original Pi products, Upton said. “If people think that going public means that we … drive up prices, drive up margins, drive down performance characteristics, all we can say is: Watch us. Keep watching,” he said. “Let’s look at this in 15, 20 years.”
This post was updated on January 30 at 2:30 p.m. ET to include an Ars interview with Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton.
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