The Raspberry Pi IPO with Eben Upton (CEO) and Aditi Venkatram (Jefferies) (IPO Stories, Ep. 32)

In this episode we sit down with Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi – a UK-based technology company known for its single-board computers, initially founded to promote programming education and growing into a global leader in embedded computing. We are joined by Aditi Venkatram, Managing Director at Jefferies, one of the bankers advising on the IPO of Raspberry Pi on the London Stock Exchange in June 2024.

We deep dive into the key strategic and operational considerations for a successful Tech IPO outside of the US boundary, discuss the rationale for the Raspberry Pi listing, how to balance demand from both institutional and retail investors, and building long-term success post-IPO.

 

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Disclaimer: The discussion in this episode is not financial advice, nor an investment recommendation, nor a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instruments or an offer for financial services or any other transaction. The information contained in the recording has no contractual value and is intended for informational purposes only. Amundsen Investment Management and the participants in this podcast may have holdings in the companies being discussed. Any views expressed are those of the guests only, and not of Amundsen Investment Management.

[0:06] Per Einar Ellefsen: Today we tell the story of the IPO of Raspberry Pi, a UK tech company that listed on the London Stock Exchange in June 2024. 

[0:49] Per Einar Ellefsen: Raspberry Pi is the leading global provider of single-board computers. What began as a project to get more kids into programming has become a global success story, with its technology now used extensively in industrial and embedded applications. 

Today’s episode is slightly different: we’re hosting two guests — Eben Upton, CEO and founder of Raspberry Pi, and Aditi Venkatram, Managing Director at Jefferies, who worked with Peel Hunt as Global Coordinator for the IPO. Eben shares his experience as CEO, and Aditi provides the banker’s perspective. 

[1:18] Per Einar Ellefsen: We’ll cover the IPO rationale for a profitable, fast-growing company; the decision to list in London rather than the U.S.; and how the team engaged investors. 

[1:46] Per Einar Ellefsen: Eben and Aditi, thank you for joining us today. Eben, can you start by telling us where the initial idea for Raspberry Pi came from and how the company evolved? 

 

The Origins of Raspberry Pi 

[2:05] Eben Upton: We started Raspberry Pi in late 2008 — so it’s been about 16 years. The initial goal was to reverse a decline in the number of applicants to Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. 

Between the late 1990s and 2008, applications had fallen from around 600 to 200 for roughly 100 places. It had become one of the easiest ways to get into Cambridge. We weren’t yet compromising on quality, but we were close. 

We traced that decline to the disappearance of programmable hardware from young people’s lives. I learned to program on a BBC Micro in the 1980s — you didn’t choose to be a programmer; you just became one because the hardware was there. When that hardware disappeared, so did the pipeline of future computer scientists. 

So we created Raspberry Pi to re-introduce affordable, programmable hardware. We launched our first product in 2012 — initially targeted at education and enthusiasts — but soon realised there was massive industrial demand for our boards. 

By around 2020, roughly 70–80% of our sales came from industrial and embedded applications. We were still serving the education community, but we’d become largely an industrial electronics company. 

 

Industrial Applications 

[4:41] Per Einar Ellefsen: What kinds of industrial applications use Raspberry Pi? 

[4:46] Eben Upton: They’re incredibly broad. For example, Brompton Bicycles automates its factory using Raspberry Pis. That’s an industrial use case — direct deployment of our products in automation. 

But most of our business is embedded OEM demand — companies integrating our computing modules into their own products: electric vehicle chargers, elevator systems, smart devices like connected dart boards. 

Those companies don’t want to design compute platforms from scratch — that’s our job. We become their outsourced computing partner. 

 

Why IPO a Profitable Company? 

[6:26] Per Einar Ellefsen: Raspberry Pi was profitable and growing fast. Why decide to IPO in 2024? 

[6:36] Eben Upton: We had raised private capital before — $45 million in 2021 and $15 million in 2023 from Sony and Arm. That funded two big transitions: (1) moving from a licensing model to a direct OEM model, and (2) funding our growing engineering capex. 

 Developing the Raspberry Pi 5 alone cost around $25 million. 

The IPO was partly to raise $40 million in new capital, but mainly to help our major shareholder, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, diversify its assets. It had done tremendous educational work and relied heavily on its stake in us. Listing allowed it to realize some value and fund its mission at greater scale. 

 

Bankers’ Perspective and Timing 

[9:48] Per Einar Ellefsen: Aditi, when did Jefferies get involved and how did you think about timing? 

[9:57] Aditi Venkatram: We joined about a year after the company’s first investor outreach. The equity story had evolved rapidly — especially with the launch of Pi 5, Raspberry Pi’s first board with proprietary silicon IP. 

Together with the strategic investments from Arm and Sony, this was a strong endorsement. We felt it was exactly the right moment to list — and the market proved us right. 

 

Choosing London Over New York 

[11:04] Per Einar Ellefsen: Eben, why list in the UK instead of the U.S.? 

[11:04] Eben Upton: Initially I was leaning toward New York — maybe 70/30. But after a pre-marketing trip to the U.S., I came back 70/30 for London. 

Two reasons: 

1. No real valuation gap. Once you compare like-for-like companies, multiples in London and New York are very similar. What you see as a “gap” is really a cohort effect — the U.S. simply has more high-growth companies. 

1. Global capital is mobile. If you have a compelling equity story and do the legwork — go tell it to U.S. and international investors — the money will find you. 

So listing in London didn’t limit us. It actually made sense as a homegrown success story for the UK market. 

 

The Banker’s Analysis 

[14:41] Per Einar Ellefsen: Aditi, what was Jefferies’ analysis in choosing London? 

[14:50] Aditi Venkatram: We were agnostic at first. We ran a data-driven comparison — meeting key investors in the UK, U.S., and Nordics after the Pi 5 launch. 

Our conclusion: Raspberry Pi was seen as a UK tech champion, and would get greater attention and ownership at home than as a smaller name in the U.S. market. 

The challenge was educating generalist UK investors on tech valuation, but once they understood the story, support was overwhelming. By the end, one investor literally said, “This is the one we’re all backing.” 

[17:14] Eben Upton: Exactly. There’s a myth that London lacks the capability to understand tech. Our experience proved the opposite — UK investors still have a deep engineering mindset and can grasp complex businesses like ours. 

 

Investor Targeting and Education 

[18:40] Per Einar Ellefsen: Aditi, how did you target investors for this IPO? 

[18:47] Aditi Venkatram: Our focus was on de-risking the transaction through deep education. We spent months with investors, giving detailed financial guidance and helping them model unit volumes and growth drivers. 

It was probably the most granular IPO I’ve worked on. The result: even before the ITF announcement, our shadow book was fully subscribed — a rare achievement. 

 

Cornerstone Investors 

[20:11] Per Einar Ellefsen: You had two cornerstones — Arm and Lansdowne. Why bring them in? 

[20:20] Aditi Venkatram: They were already shareholders and re-committed $55 million at IPO — a powerful endorsement of the story. 

[20:40] Eben Upton: Exactly. Those relationships went back years. The credibility we built through delivery — saying in 2021 we’d become an OEM and then actually doing it — was critical. Investors remembered. That’s why credibility over time matters so much. 

 

Evolving the Story 

[23:39] Eben Upton: One lesson from pre-marketing was how to frame our semiconductor work. We learned to position it not as a stand-alone growth driver but as an enabler of our board-level products — our core business. Investors responded better to that narrative. 

 

Retail Investor Participation 

[25:39] Per Einar Ellefsen: Raspberry Pi has a huge fan base. How did you approach retail investors? 

[25:52] Eben Upton: We understood the concerns — that going public might make us more commercial and less community-focused. The only way to address that is through actions: keep delivering, don’t compromise on values. 

Since the IPO we’ve actually accelerated new product launches — proof that we’re still driven by innovation, not short-termism. 

[27:39] Aditi Venkatram: Retail was vital to the story — it reflects the company’s ethos of accessibility. About 15% of shares are now held by retail investors. We saw massive oversubscription in the UK retail offering. 

[28:35] Eben Upton: Yes, we had to cap allocations around £2,000 per person. It was important to be fair — equal participation for all. In future, I’d love to see regulatory changes that make it easier to expand UK retail offerings. 

 

Post-IPO Engagement 

[30:26] Per Einar Ellefsen: Eben, how do you manage investor relations post-IPO? 

[30:34] Eben Upton: I still spend one day a week meeting investors — Thursdays are for that. I enjoy it. After 16 years building Raspberry Pi, I love telling our story. And I always come away energized — especially when investors ask really technical questions! 

Delivering on our promises is everything — that’s how you build a quality investor base. 

[33:26] **Aditi Ven 

katram**: Exactly. Transparency and consistent delivery are 99% of post-IPO success. The Raspberry Pi team has nailed both. 

 

Lessons for Other Companies 

[35:16] Per Einar Ellefsen: What advice would you give to other European tech companies considering an IPO? 

[35:23] Eben Upton: Work with quality people — world-class advisors, lawyers, and internal teams. We had Jefferies and Peel Hunt as joint globals, Linklaters as counsel, and excellent support from our own board. 

Take your time — educate investors thoroughly, including internationally. Some of our best meetings were in Finland and Sweden. Those relationships might not pay off on day one, but they strengthen your long-term shareholder base. 

And finally, accept what you can’t control — timing. The macro environment may shift, but conviction and preparation matter most. The IPO process is an extreme sport — exhausting but deeply rewarding. 

[39:15] Eben Upton: A friend once told me: “You only do one IPO — because if you do it right, you don’t need to do it again. And if you do it wrong, you don’t get to.” 

 

A Fun IPO Moment 

[39:25] Per Einar Ellefsen: Any fun facts from the IPO process? 

[39:28] Aditi Venkatram: So many! We actually pitched the IPO using Python code instead of a traditional timeline slide — literally coding the “perfect IPO outcome.” When we reached that page, Eben smiled and I knew this would be special. 

We even joked about hoping the share price would hit £3.14 on day one. 

[40:14] Eben Upton: Yes — as a fellow Douglas Adams fan, I appreciated all the “42” jokes too! 

[40:32] Per Einar Ellefsen: Thank you very much, Eben and Aditi. 

[40:34] Aditi Venkatram: Thank you so much. 

[40:35] Eben Upton: Thank you indeed. 

[40:38] Per Einar Ellefsen: Thank you for listening to IPO Stories. In future episodes, we’ll host CEOs, CFOs, advisors, and other participants in the IPO process to learn from their experiences — like Eben and Aditi today. 

If you enjoy the show, please follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, share it with others, and send questions about the IPO process to contact@ipostories.com. 

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