A private high school in California earned millions from the Snap Inc. public offering, after two students told their dad about the popularity of the app five years ago.
Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, Calif., invested $15,000 in Snapchat’s seed round when the dad, Lightspeed partner Barry Eggers, invited the school’s board to participate in the seed round with his firm. That investment has paid off more than anyone could imagine, as Snap started trading Thursday, and closed 44% above its issue price.
According to media outlets, Saint Francis sold two-thirds of its 2.1 million shares at the company’s $17 issue price, bringing in close to $24 million.
Lightspeed invested $485,000 in the round. The firm sold at least 4,632,890 shares in the offering, bringing in about $78.8 million. Lightspeed still owns 81,996,629 shares, according to the prospectus, and has voting rights associated with its stock.
The school invested in the round as part of its SF Growth Fund, an investment fund created for the school by parents and the school’s former president.
The school said it would be investing and managing the proceeds within the school’s endowment. The goal is to use the money toward the school’s strategic plan, which it says strives to “make Catholic education more affordable and accessible” and to bring on new staff, among other initiatives.
Eggers approached the school about an investment after he saw his daughter and her friends sitting around the kitchen table “absorbed in their phones,” Eggers said in a blog post. Both she and his son confirmed that they used the app several times a day to message friends.
Eggers then went to Stanford University to meet with Snap co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Ten days later he made the seed investment, with participation from the SF Growth Fund.