Raspberry Pi prepares for London listing

Raspberry Pi, the British maker of cheap, tiny computers, plans to go public in London, in a boost to the UK stock market at a time when it has struggled to attract growing tech companies.

The Cambridge-based maker of computer modules and low-cost computers for industrial users, enthusiasts and educators said it would seek a listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

A registration document published on Wednesday revealed that Raspberry Pi was valued at $597mn in November, including the new funds raised, when UK chip designer Arm took a 3.4 per cent stake.

With its initial public offering, the company hopes to achieve a slight premium to that valuation, according to a person familiar with its plans. The listing, which is likely to take place in early June, is intended to help Raspberry Pi attract and retain staff in the competitive tech talent market.

Raspberry Pi began trading in 2012 and has since sold more than 60mn single-board computers and computer modules, it said.

Revenues at the company, in which Japan’s Sony also holds a 1.7 per cent stake, rose 41 per cent to $265.8mn in 2023 over the previous year, with pre-tax profits almost doubling to $38.2mn, according to filings.

Raspberry Pi said it expected to sell 8.4mn units in 2024, up from 7.4mn last year.

The business is a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity founded in 2008 to promote computer science to young people. The foundation, which currently holds a 73 per cent stake in the company, will remain a shareholder after the initial public offering.

Other significant shareholders include the Ezrah Charitable Trust, a US-based private foundation that has also donated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Lansdowne Partners, who together invested $45mn at an implied post-money valuation of $545mn in September 2021, according to Wednesday’s filing.

The proposed listing comes at a time when the UK public markets have struggled to attract IPO interest from tech companies, which have increasingly preferred to list in New York.

London-listed cyber security company Darktrace last month agreed to a takeover from private equity group Thoma Bravo for £4.3bn, two years after it went public.

“When we released our first product in 2012, our goal was to provide a computer that was affordable enough for young people to own and explore with confidence, giving them the chance to discover computing and get excited about it,” said Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi’s chief executive.

“But from the very beginning we saw customers using our products in a staggering variety of applications across a broad swath of markets, and as we recognised the potential for affordable technology to make a meaningful difference, not just in education but in countless other contexts, the scale of our ambition grew.”

Jefferies International and Peel Hunt have been engaged as joint bookrunners for Raspberry Pi.