Raspberry Pi’s claim to fame is simple: it makes cheap, unassuming personal computers. Oh, and they’re also the size of your credit card at best. If you look at one of their PCs, it looks like a mechanical, exposed component of a laptop that you’d otherwise take no interest in.
But that’s exactly Raspberry Pi’s goal—to teach people about computing and coding. The Cambridge-based group, founded 16 years ago, is now gearing up for an IPO that’s set to give the London Stock Exchange a much-needed boost. Its shares have been priced at £2.
80 ($3.56) apiece, fetching a market capitalization of about £542 million ($688 million). The shares will start trading on June 14.
“In an ever-more-connected world, the market for Raspberry Pi’s high-performance, low-cost computing platforms continues to expand,” Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said. Raspberry Pi had a humble start to life as a charity in Cambridge, where a team of engineers and computer scientists came together to create a PC unique from others. It was made to “withstand the rough and tumble of childhood,” as the University of Cambridge puts it , and the company has now sold over 60 million PCs worldwide since it first went on sale in 2012.
Raspberry Pi’s secret sauce has four easy yet critical criteria—the PCs must be programmable, fun, affordable, and robust. Today, the cheapest Raspberry Pi computer costs just $15 . People use Raspberry Pi to understand programming and test hardware projects and oth.