Roblox moves toward IPO, discloses revenue and net losses for last three years

Following in the footsteps of other major game companies like Unity, Roblox has filed the necessary paperwork to ready for an IPO and revealed data on its last few years of financials in the process.

This follows rumors from last month that Roblox was indeed considering going public, though things seem to be moving a bit quicker than the early 2021 target mentioned in those reports.

According to the data shared in the filing, revenue at Roblox has increased since 2018 though it has reported net losses for that same period.

Year by year, Roblox saw $312.8 million in revenue and a net loss of $97.2 million in 2018, compared to revenue of $488.2 million and a net loss of $86 million in 2019.

For the first 9 months of 2020, Roblox reported $588.7 million in revenue and a net loss of $203.2 million. For comparison's sake, it notes $349.9 million in revenue and a net loss of $46.3 million for the same 9 month period in 2019.

Roblox notes this trend of losses in the risk factor section, and earlier on says its strengths as a company lie in its significant bookings and revenue with strong unit economics, free cash flow generation, and high growth.

As a platform, Roblox has long existed as a online behemoth led by user-created content. Its model allows for developers earn money on content created within Roblox and sold via in-game currency ("Robux"), and it routinely announces yearly developer payouts in the millions. The most recent projection estimated payouts of $250 million for 2020, a sizable increase from 2019's $110 million.

From the filing: "For the twelve months ended September 30, 2020, over 960,000 developers and creators earned Robux on the Roblox Platform, of which there were over 1,050 developers and creators that earned $10,000 or more and nearly 250 developers and creators that earned $100,000 or more in Robux."

Roblox has also previously been forthcoming about its steady increase in users, but today's filing offers more data on things like its daily active users and engagement over the past several years.

In 2018, Roblox saw 12 million daily active users with 9.4 billion hours of engagement. In 2019, both numbers rose to 17.6 million DAUs and 13.7 billion hours. As of September 30, 2020, that upwards trend looks to be continuing with 31.1 million daily active users and 22.2 billion hours.