ONLINE gaming platform Roblox was founded in 2004 with a goal to connect people through immersive virtual worlds.
The company announced it had plans to go public in the stock market after raising $520million from investors in a private funding round.
Roblox IPO will begin trading on March 10 under the ticker RBLX.
Because of the large sum of money the company raised through private funding, the deal shot them up at a $29.5billion valuation.
Roblox shares are predicted to cost about $45 apiece when they hit the market.
Roblox is a massively multiplayer game aimed at younger players.
It lets anyone design their own mini-games and virtual worlds.
These “social network” games are created using Lego-like virtual blocks.
Players can create their own avatars, and speak to other gamers in real-time.
The game was released back in 2006, and now has more than 164million players globally.
It is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, Android, Xbox One and even Facebook’s Oculus Rift VR headset.
Roblox has proved controversial due to the creation of sex games inside the app by a handful of creepy players.
These areas are meant to be adult only, but some children have managed to access them when in-game roadblocks failed.
The online gaming platform has tens of millions of games played by nearly 32.6million daily active users.
Roblox’s daily users have increased 85 percent over the past year, sending sales up 82 percent along with them.
Roblox’s revenue gets a 30 percent cut on user spending, while the rest of the funds goes to developers on the platform.
It also earns a commission when developers convert Robux, or virtual currency, into real dollars.
Revenue for the company grew 56 percent in 2019, which averaged $488 million.
In the first nine months of 2020, revenue grew at a rapid pace, rising 68 percent, or $589 million.
