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On March 26, 2024, Truth Social entered the public market via the SPAC merger of Trump Media & Technology Group with the Digital World Acquisition Corp, at a valuation of eight billion U.S. dollars. The U.S.- based mortgage company Better.com, which went public via SPAC merger with the Aurora Acquisition Corp. in August 2023, enjoyed the implied valuation of almost seven billion U.S. dollars, despite having seen its profits deteriorate in the previous year.

SPAC mergers in the alt-tech scene

SPAC mergers have become an increasingly common way for non-mainstream social media companies and alt-tech platforms to enter the public market. The number of Truth Social app downloads in the United States barely reached 100 thousand in February 2024. Despite this, Truth Social had a grandiose market debut, peaking at almost 80 U.S. dollars per share. Launched in February 2022, Truth Social is a microblogging platform that proposes to uphold freedom of expression by giving voice to the alt-right political figures in the American public debate. Similarly, online video platform Rumble, which monetizes content from creators such as Andrew Tate and Russell Brand, chose to go public via a SPAC merger with CF Acquisition Corp VI on September 15, 2022. The quarterly revenue generated by Rumble was almost 18 million U.S. dollars in the third quarter of 2023, down by 30 percent compared to the previous period. In comparison, the hours of uploaded video content on Rumble keep climbing to increasingly high output results, a sign that content creators have been using the platform more than in previous years.

Latest social media IPOs

March 2024 marked the resurgence of social media IPOs. On March 21, 2024, social forum Reddit began officially trading on the New York exchange. The platform, which was launched in 2005, first expressed its wish to go public in December 2021. Reddit was valued at 6.5 billion U.S. dollars in its pre-IPO stand, but managed to surpass a 10 billion valuation after its market debut. Within the ranking of estimated valuation of selected social media platforms at their entrance into the public market, Reddit positions itself in the mid to low tier of the scale. Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social, which went public via a SPAC merger in the same month, enjoyed a valuation of approximately eight billion U.S. dollars. The largest social media IPO recorded in the last 15 years was Facebook, which went public at a valuation of 104 billion U.S. dollars. Among the companies that have expressed the will to go public, communication and social networking platform Discord Inc. stands out thanks to its estimated 2022 valuation at 10 billion U.S. dollars.