Bulletins

Roblox files for IPO, promising 'the metaverse is materializing'

The fall of IPOs rolls on: Roblox just published its S-1 as it gets ready to become one of the first virtual-world games to test the public market.

The company's numbers are eye-popping: 31.1 million daily active users (up 82% in the last year), $588.7 million in revenue over the last nine months (up 68%), and a $203.2 million loss so far in 2020, which is more than four times the losses from a year ago.

Roblox is pitching itself to investors as more than just a game for kids, too. It's telling a story a bit like Fortnite's, where it's both a destination and a toolset for others to use. More than anything, though, it's science fiction come to life. "With the advent of increasingly powerful consumer computing devices, cloud computing, and high bandwidth internet connections," the S-1 says, "the concept of the metaverse is materializing."

David Pierce

David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's former editorial director. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.

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Bulletins