The image messaging application Snap, previously called Snapchat, filed for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) on Friday, after five years if launch, where it hopes to raise $3 billion. Expected to go public in March this year at a valuation of nearly $25 billion, the app was launched in 2011 by former Stanford University students Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.

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Last year, it was believed that Snapchat would generate $350 million in revenue for 2016 and was projecting $1 billion in revenue for 2017, reports TechCrunch. The company, however, came in ahead of the projections for last year at around $400 million.

In the last quarter last year, Snap brought in $165.7 million in revenue, a raise from $32.7 million in revenue in the last quarter of 2015. In Q4, the company had lost around $170 million, up from losses of around $98 million in the last quarter of 2015. On the year, Snap lost around $515 million, up from losses of $373 million in 2015.

Coming to international revenue, Snap brought in $14.7 million in revenue in the fourth quarter last year from Europe, a jump from $1.3 million. It brought in $5.7 million from outside of Europe and North America in the fourth quarter, whereas the year before it brought in practically no revenue.

Snap had to invest heavily not only in research and product development but also infrastructure - thanks to the app's use of videos and photos that comes with a lot of costs pertaining to running the actual service and keeping it from crashing.

Snap has made the biggest investment in its research and development arm, where it spent $184 million in 2016, up from $82 million. It spent around $124 million in marketing last year and $165 million in general and administrative costs. The total cost of revenue for the company accumulated to $182 million in 2015 to $452 million in 2016.

Snapchat has never taken celebrities' and influencers' help on its platform unlike other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have. Its core utility lies as much in peer-to-peer messaging as one to many broadcasting, reports the Verge.

According to analysts, Snap may emphasize the growing engagement of its core user base, preferring that metric to the total size of its audience or the view count on high-profile stories.