Snapchat's parent company Snap Inc files for US$3 billion IPO

Snap Inc, owner of Snapchat has lifted the veil on its much anticipated initial public offering of US$3 billion. According to an article by Reuters, this offering highlights the company's plans to aggressively expand.According to the IPO registration document that was published, the company claimed that Snap Inc would be one of the firsts to go public with the shares without granting voting rights to stock market investors. Meanwhile, its founders, Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy, will keep control of the company, it said.Reuters revealed that the app's daily active users grew to an average of 158 million at the end of December, up 48 percent year-on-year. However, despite the growth in user base, the net loss amounted to US$514.6 in 2016 as compared to $372.9 million in 2015.In an effort to add to this growing list of user base and make it more attractive for brands, Snapchat has been slowly growing its features. It recently added on QR codes where brands and businesses can simply create the Snapcode by opening “settings” and clicking on the “create Snapcode” option.This code can be saved and used by other users as a direct link to a brand’s website. To make brands more appealing, the app also allows the addition of an image to the Snapcode, which can be done by clicking on the ghost icon. The image can be sourced from the website or from the camera roll. With this, brands can now promote themselves on the platform with an image and not just a mere URL.Moreover, recently Snapchat also added a new feature called a search bar. According to media reports, the search bar can be accessed from the top of the app, where users can conveniently chat with other users, search for content and add new friends.