Steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal’s son-in-law Amit Bhatia is a Snap investor and he expects the IPO to boom
Snap's impending float will be mega successful, according to a London investor in the messaging app.
Amit Bhatia, steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal's son-in-law and founder of Swordfish Investments, took part in a funding round in 2014 that valued the company behind Snapchat at $10bn (£8.13bn).
"Far from looking to exit at IPO, I would look to add to my current position when the stock becomes more available post IPO. We are in the midst of a modern day industrial and technological revolution, and I'm betting Snap is going to play a pivotal, and fun part in that," Bhatia told City A.M.
In what is expected to be the biggest IPO since Alibaba went public in 2014, Snap will price its IPO after the US stock market closes today. It is targeting a valuation of between $19.5bn and $22.3bn from a listing on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. Snap wooed European investors last month in a IPO roadshow in London led by founder Evan Spigel, the 26-year-old who's set to rake in billions from the float.
Read more: Ignore the pessimists: Why I'm bullish on Snapchat's IPO
Bhatia, who is also the co-owner of Queen Park Rangers Football Club, has also invested in other disruptive tech companies including Alibaba, Uber, Deliveroo and Dropbox. In 2015, he sold cement producer Hope Construction to construction group Breeedon for £336m.
Bhatia admitted that investors might worry about burning cash due to the slowdown in Snapchat users.
"There are many who remain sceptical focusing on its enormous cash burn, worrying about its high profile competitors plagiarising (or cloning to be more polite) its product with their own versions, its strange 'no voting' shares being offered to the public, the slowdown in acquiring new users," he said.
Read more: Snap IPO's unexpected winners: Alibaba and a Californian school
However, the former Merrill Lynch banker predicts the app will be able to generate revenue given the "incredible loyalty" users have for it.
"I am firmly in the Yes camp and find myself continuing to remain bullish on the business, as I have been since I first invested in it at the end of 2014.
"I prefer to focus on it's ability to already generate significant revenue within its short life, the incredible loyalty users have for it, its ubiquitous presence of almost every young American's smart phone, the attractive advertising demographics that user base represent, it's incredibly cool and engaging filters, its move into wearables with snap spectacles."
Bhatia married Mittal's daughter in 2004 in a ceremony that reportedly cost $74m. The six-day Indian wedding was hosted in part in the Versailles Palace in France and over 1,000 guests were flown in. According to Forbes, Kylie Minogue and Bollywood celebrities performed at, what was at the time, the most expensive wedding in history.