5 social media companies that have yet to go public – are they going to?

Are you looking to invest in social media companies? Maybe you want a hot IPO prospect. Maybe you want a company to grow with. Maybe you're just a fintech geek. That's okay _ we all have our own reasons for investing (or not) in certain stocks, but I'm here to make sure you're considering options that are still available.

Since 2013, the overall picture has seen some huge changes, the most notable being the total number of startups. Well actually — there are private social media companies already on top of many peoples portfolio, Facebook and Twitter being the obvious ones for anyone investing since their IPOs. So other than them, who is still out there?

Snap

Social media companies are the darlings of Wall Street. They're growing rapidly, they have huge user bases and they're valued at billions of dollars. But there's one thing that social media companies don't typically have: profits. That's because Wall Street values companies based on how much revenue they bring in, not how much money they make from those revenues.

That's why many social media companies have decided to go public — they want to raise money from investors so they can invest in growth and make more money down the road. But there are some exceptions. Here are five social media companies that haven't gone public yet: Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat, has been rumored to be considering an IPO for years now, but it hasn't happened yet.

The company has raised $1 billion in private capital so far, which means that if it did go public now, it'd be worth more than $20 billion according to its latest valuation by Second Measure.

Whatsapp

Are social media companies private? Social media companies are private because they're not publicly traded. They're owned by a small number of investors, and their earnings are only reported to those investors. So why do so many people think that Facebook and other social media companies are public? The confusion probably stems from the fact that these companies have a lot of users, and those users often feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves.

But even though you may be connected to people from all around the world, your relationship with Facebook or Twitter is still just between you and them — not with anyone else who has invested in them. Some social media companies are private because they started as small businesses and didn't intend to go public right away.

But many of them started as startups that had lofty goals but no clear path to profitability — at least not anytime soon. These businesses may have been forced into going private when venture capital ran out, or they may have gone private voluntarily so they could continue working on their ideas without having to worry about quarterly reports or investor concerns over profit growth.

Twitter

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pandora are all publicly traded companies, but there are several other social media sites that have yet to go public. Are they going to? Twitter: Will it IPO? Twitter has seen a lot of change in its business model over the past few years. It's gone from being a simple text-based service for sharing what people are doing in real time to something much more complex and feature rich.

The company has also been through some rough times as well. It lost key executives and was forced to lay off employees as it tried to right itself. Many investors were unsure if Twitter would ever be able to turn itself around and become profitable again. But things seem to be looking up for the company lately.

It hired new CEO Dick Costolo who seems intent on turning around Twitter's fortunes by focusing on mobile advertising rather than desktop ads. Costolo has also brought in new executives to help with this effort, including former Facebook executive Adam Bain who now runs sales at Twitter. In addition, Costolo has been making changes behind the scenes that could help Twitter's profitability as well as its overall user experience (UX).

Pinterest

Social media companies are often thought of as public companies, but there are actually quite a few that have yet to go public. The idea behind taking a company public is that it will be able to raise money by selling shares on Wall Street and use that money to grow the business.

When a company goes public, it's required to make its financial information available to the public through Securities and Exchange Commission filings. This can be an intense process, but it allows investors to get a clearer picture of what's going on with the company. Here are five social media companies that have yet to go public — and why they might never do so: Pinterest: Pinterest has grown from zero users in 2009 to hundreds of millions today.

It's one of the top 10 most visited websites in the U.S., according to Alexa data, which measures website traffic across the internet (the only other non-Google site in this group is Netflix). But Pinterest doesn't see much revenue from ads yet because advertisers aren't sure how best to use Pinterest ads or how much value they provide for their brands compared with other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.

To conclude

It's a growing trend for social media companies to stay private longer these days, as the founders of Facebook, Twitter and SnapChat all held off from making their companies public. A big reason why is the control over their company that they aren't willing to give up just yet. However, there are those who believe that these companies will inevitably follow suit and IPO within 10 years or less.