Raspberry Pi prepares to boot up a London listing

Raspberry Pi Ltd is considering an Initial Public Offering and today published figures showing just how important commercial customers have become to the company. The confirmation came in an Expected Intention To Float announcement on the London Stock Exchange. While a valuation has not been published, the figure is expected …

[Dickie_Mosfet]

I've got a bad feeling about this.

[elsergiovolador]

IPOs often happen if founders want to cash out but they can't find a private buyer. So typically they'll flog it to asset stripper at a discount and the rest will be picked up by funds and punters.

Then it will float for a bit like a t**d in a river and then it will disintegrate.

[vordan]

Or, maybe they seek ways to get additional funding to make even more amazing things.

You don't have to see criminals in everybody

[UnknownUnknown]

‘In the current macroeconomic environment….’

Nuff said about benevolent trickle down economics/capitalism...

[john.jones.name]

IPO prospectus

until you read the prospectus its all conjecture and even then its going to be full of weasel lawyer words

if I was being mean I would say they have become a fantastic broadcom VAR, doing very little to add capability beyond adding their own ASIC for what was called the southbridge in old intel terms...

on a positive note hopefully they could use some of the money to fund their own SOC with a full graphics stack (full openGL ES 3.2 and vulkan 1.3 compliance) rather than just broadcom

either way its been a good thing

[Naich]

As happened with..... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As C3 Pi O never said:- ""This isn’t the afterlife, is it? Are enthusiasts allowed here?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps:-

"Goodness! Han Solo! It is I, C-3Pi O! You probably do not recognize me because of the stock exchange listing..."

[Roj Blake]

"We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

After an IPO, he won't be in charge though.

[Dan 55]

Re: "We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

Official confirmation then that if he gets told to stick AI in the Pi by some activist investor who has a huge slice (see what I did) he'll have to do it, or he'll just take the money or run.

[Hairy Spod]

Re: "We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

....which might not be a bad thing, the money he runs off with would undoubtedly be much larger than what the company was originally founded with.

I'm sure the small print of the deal would prevent him from starting a competitor.

He could use it to reset, or maybe even change tact and reinvent the netbook to help kids who were not allowed to connect their pi to the household tv and challenge the chromebook in the education market

[steviebuk]

Re: "We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

Unless he controls the most stock and the controlling votes, he'll just get overuled by the other big share holders.

[steviebuk]

Re: "We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

Its how the robot, I mean Zuckerberg hasn't been fired for the shit show and failure that is the metaverse, because he has the controlling shares and vote.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the great enshittification commence, what a shame.

[Lee D]

Avigon Alta, formerly Openpath, formerly part of Motorola, is an access control system that consists of a Raspberry Pi, a small GPIO hat, a USB GPIO / relay board, and cloud software.

Ask me how I know.

Also nComputing used to sell thin-client boxes and then just slapped a RPi 3 in a box with rdesktop as their ENTIRE PRODUCT instead.

[cornetman]

Yeah, the Pi does open up all sorts of automation possibilities.

Just the other I was wondering what I would do if the control box for our electric gate opener were to fail (we don't have a big mansion, just something that the previous owner installed for his convenience!). I think a Raspberry Pi with some 24V switching and remote control addons would do the trick which I could now network up to my server to get live video feed, some kind of warning if the gate opens, and a host of other probably more fun than useful things.

The Raspberry Pi really is a cool idea for bringing automation and control to the masses.

[elsergiovolador]

But RPi is not realtime out of the box, so proper automation is out of the question unless you somehow figure out how to run realtime operating system on it.

[cornetman]

> But RPi is not realtime out of the box, so proper automation is out of the question unless you somehow figure out how to run realtime operating system on it.

Agreed that a lot of automation requires realtime, predicable performance. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part as I really meant embedded system.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Or an Arduino, or a Pi2040 - I don't think you need a full-up Linux desktop to open a gate

An ESP32 and you could even use bluetooth = it detects your phone / car and opens

[Lee D]

I think that's great for hobbyists and I use them myself in this way.

I think running a general purpose OS on a cheap device means that we'll be overpaying for glorified systems running on a cheap locked-down Pi for decades to come in all kinds of contexts.

[Anonymous Coward]

But, but, shareholders! That means.... Demands for divvies! Price inflation!!

WHY does (almost) everything good in this world get turned over to bloody shareholders. What's wrong with keeping it private?

[nematoad]

What's wrong with keeping it private?

A big payoff for those fortunate to be involved. You know Capitalism.

I still think it's a shame though as I can see it swiftly being bought and taken to Wall Street.

Another British stalwart sold to the highest bidder.

[elsergiovolador]

Nothing wrong, but the UK economy is currently hostile towards private business.

There is really no point of running a business anymore, because you work for the tax man who the funnels all the money to big corporations, and no longer for yourself.

[Roland6]

More like he UK government and specifically the Conservatives, who at every opportunity have favoured US business over UK businesses. I think the rot set in during the Thatcher years. Systime Computers, Westland Helicopters and more recently Palantir…

[steviebuk]

Is this

Eben Upton wanting to cash out then? Watching it burn and be controlled by the share holders. Watch prices increase etc.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Same

First ARM, now Raspberry Pi succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh (money). Despite all the assurances I'm not at all certain this will work out well.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Same

I wonder how long it will take for all production to be outsourced to the lowest bidder?

Yes, I know it's already outsourced, and always has been, but there is still some pride in the UK based manufacturing plant.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Same

The new CEO will outsource it to China and use a Chinese Rockchip ARM clone so he can give himself a $100 million bonus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beginning of the end. Greed wins again.

[Snowy]

Dropping the charity status?

I assume they will drop the charity status.

[Altrux]

Re: Dropping the charity status?

Why? The Foundation carries on exactly as it is, partly funded by profits from RPi Trading, which will be the listed part. They are separate (but obviously related) organisations.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Dropping the charity status?

But will the funding from RPi Ltd to RPi Foundation suffer for shareholders bonuses?

[Bartholomew]

What is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen ?

Eben after a few years is eventually asked to step down by the board. Oh and he is given a massive golden parachute. He cashes in all the shares he was given by the company, Liz does the same. Both end up living on a Caribbean island relaxing in the Sun without a care in the world. Pete, Gordon, James and Dom cash out and jump ship to anywhere that they want to work, they will be head hunted. Sorry but they are the only people who work at Raspberry Pi that I can think of I'm sure that there are many many others, but I'm drawing a blank - sorry.

The board installs an American CEO and they move the headquarters to Norfolk, Virginia - for absolutely no reason at all (Hint: NoSuchAgenc*sound of a gun being fired*

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen ?

"The board installs an American CEO and they move the headquarters to Norfolk, Virginia - for absolutely no reason at all"

As an investor owned corporation, it's an easy 30-40% gain simply by listing in the US rather than UK or EU. I don't know what the EU's excuse is, in the UK it's in large part down to government regulation and interference in the management of pension funds that pressures UK pension funds against investing much in equities.

[Charles E]

Out Of Stock

If I buy a few shares of stock, will they deliver a Raspberry Pi computing module to me? Because I have NEVER seen them in stock. There seems to be a secret backchannel, does it include stockholders?

[GlenP]

Re: Out Of Stock

Farnell have several thousand in stock across most of the models. The only one that's low stock is the CM4 2GB which they only have 13 of.

[vordan]

But, why using a third-world country exchange to do that?

Frankfurt would be a much better choice

[weirdbeardmt]

Fun while it lasted

Oh well, that’ll be the end of the Pi then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's time to move on.

There are lots of small cheap SBCs out there. The only real problem is the software support. Most have dodgy builds of Linux, with weird unknown patches.

[cbrisuda]

"We've always tried to run a business that does interesting work and makes money, and I don't think those imperatives are going to change.”

Am I hallucinating or isn’t/wasn’t their mission statement something like democratizing access to technology? Not sure how “interesting and profitable” slots into that.

Easy to say your goals won’t change if you’ve already changed them…

[Anonymous Coward]

I too am disappointed about the upcoming IPO, but if the Raspberry Pi company didn't make money, it wouldn't exist.

I hope the Raspberry pi continues to thrive; mine have been great for me, starting with the original Pi, I've tinkered with LEDs and controlling motors and servos, made a (not particularly good) laser engraver, used one original model B as a print server for several years and another with a camera to take stop motion videos of 3D printing in progress and used 4 different generations of Pi as a PVR / home media centre.

I now have Home Assistant running on a Pi 5, allowing me to run some nifty home automation stuff, of which the most important is automating how much to charge the battery attached to my invertor overnight using a cheap tariff if the forecast solar generated power for the next day is looking a bit iffy.

[Chris Evans]

.... Not sure how “interesting and profitable” slots into that.

If the original Raspberry Pi organisation (before it split into Pi Trading and Pi Foundation) didn't make a 'profit' they couldn't have expanded and if it wasn't 'interesting' why would anyone buy their products or work for them?

Splitting into 'Pi Trading and Pi Foundation' is designed I believe to ensure the educational side can be focussed on its aims without needing to consider 'profit'

[m4r35n357]

Kicked off the forum

I was booted off the RPi forum during lockdown when they decided to pretty much end retail sales to favour american jobs over their loyal customers. I made some remark about Eben buying a yacht. You can imagine how well that went down ;)

In light of recent events I thought I would contact them and see if they would re-open my account - wish me luck ;)

Here is the text of my message:

-------------------

re: IPO

It seems that the "inflammatory" comments I made were more prescient than even I imagined at the time. In light of the fact that I was correct in my assessment, I politely request reinstatement of my account.

Thank you for your consideration,

(my name)