Raspberry Pi employees to receive £68m payday from London flotation

Raspberry Pi founder and CEO Eben Upton owns shares of the company worth about 2.2%. Photo: David Rose

Raspberry Pi employees are set to share in a windfall of up to £68 million when the microcomputer maker arrives in London in the coming weeks.

According to registration documents filed with the London Stock Exchange earlier on this week, the Cambridge-based company's employee incentive scheme controls shares representing around 13.6% of Raspberry Pi.

At a valuation of £500 million, it would be worth more. up to £68 million — or an average of £660,000 for each of the company's 103 employees. The true amount will most likely be diluted by the company issuing new shares as part of the placement.

While the stock does not generate net income because employees must pay to exercise stock options, the offering will likely mean a significant windfall for long-serving employees.

Eben Upton, founder and chief executive, according to the filing. director of Raspberry Pi, owns shares worth about 2.2% of the company.

This week, Raspberry Pi filed to go public on the London Stock Exchange. will become one of the largest technology placements in recent years.

Raspberry Pi is best known for its tiny computers, which have a dedicated following of amateur programmers. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

The company is best known for its tiny computers, which have a devoted following of hobbyists and amateur programmers, but it has a growing business selling to enterprise customers for use in industrial facilities.

The company is majority owned by Raspberry Pi. A fund that supports computer skills education for schoolchildren and is expected to sell its stake to finance its operations.

Other investors include Sony, which makes its devices, and microchip company Arm.

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Raspberry Pi, which was founded in 2008 and began trading in 2012, has a small team of staff despite revenue rising to $265.8m (£209m) last year. The number of employees has grown from 85 in 2021 to 103 last year.

Employee shares are held separately but will be converted into common stock when the company goes public in the coming weeks.

Some expected that the shares are owned by former employees, although the company prides itself on low staff turnover.

The Raspberry Pi listing is a boost to the government's efforts to attract more tech companies to list in London. Companies including Arm have decided to list in New York, and London-listed Darktrace recently agreed to go private, saying it was undervalued by shareholders.

Mr Upton attended the summit hosted by Jeremy Khantom in the country of the chancellor. in Buckinghamshire earlier this week, where Treasury and London Stock Exchange officials tried to encourage British companies to list in London.