![]() ![]() (OK, maybe he’s more like Ogden Morrow, the cofounder of the Oasis in the novel). Is that a reason to buy the company’s stock next week?Īs much as anyone, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki is a kind of James Halliday figure, the fictional billionaire who built the Oasis, or the version of the metaverse in Ernest Cline’s sci-fi novel Ready Player One. “So we know we want people that are invested in us, the long-term opportunity.” The metaverseĪs I wrote on Friday, I see its pending success or failure as a stock as a kind of referendum on the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. “I think we’re in the early innings of a very long game,” Donato said. Right now, Roblox has more than 1,000 people, including more than 500 that were hired during COVID-19. The company will use the proceeds from the previous $520 million to hire more people. We’re a thoughtful company in terms of how we spend our money.” That said it’s nice to be able to raise some additional money to have an increase in the size of our cash reserves for investments that we want to make. “We are saving more money than we’re spending. “We’re fortunate in that our business has been cashflow positive for a number of years,” Donato said. The company’s free cash flow, or money coming in the door, was $411.2 million in 2020, significantly more than its net losses. Can we invest in our infrastructure to enable the experiences to be more sophisticated, more advanced, or involve new use cases? While we do pretty much care about the bottom line, I’d say we’re in the mode of very much investing in our long-term success.” We will always be looking at can we pay the creator community more money. “That said, I think our inclination is to invest in long term success. “I think the unit economics and our business are strong, they have been strong, and they’ll continue to be strong,” Donato said. Roblox recently reported that it lost $253.3 million on revenues of $923.9 million for the year ended December 31. And it will be another vote of confidence for game platforms, where a company creates the foundations for games rather than making games itself, said Roger Lee, the managing director at Battery Ventures (which is not an investor), an interview with GamesBeat.īut there are some risks, as losses are going up as the company expands. If the direct listing goes well, then Roblox’s value will be high, and it will be able to raise money for itself in the future without worrying if it is leaving money on the table by mispricing its stock, as the market will have established its stock price. And if any other company wanted to acquire Roblox, it will be far more expensive after today. With the higher-than-expected valuation, Roblox will be able to raise money in the future at a much higher price than it could have just a short time ago. And one of the things that we need to make sure that we are able to do is really to step into that vision, and that requires a lot more people. As you know, we have big aspirations for where Roblox can go. ![]() “Raising the profile of the company and supporting our recruiting efforts is a great thing. “This will raise the visibility to the company, which is super important as we try to hire more and more folks to the company,” Donato said. And since the company gets a 30% cut from the revenues generated by its user-generated games, the company’s bookings for 2020 were $1.9 billion, double what they were the year before. The reason for that skyrocketing valuation is that the company saw huge increases in players during the pandemic. ![]() Though it chose not to raise money today, Roblox itself still has plenty of cash, as it brought in $520 million in private funds last month at a $29.5 billion valuation, which was seven times its value from a funding round from nearly a year before. It’s nice to just take the moment for today to reflect on that.” “We don’t normally take these moments to touch the trophy. “It’s a nice moment to step back,” said Roblox chief business officer Craig Donato in an interview with GamesBeat today. Shares are already trading above $70 a share. The shares are trading under the RBLX stock symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. Roblox‘s employees and shareholders sold more than 388.2 million shares out of a total 650 million available. ![]()
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