Pinterest Inc.’s message to investors was don’t compare us to social media or a search engine. The outcome April 17 was that it raised about $1.4 billion in an above-range initial public offering.
Pinterest operates in a crowded digital marketing space, where Google and Facebook Inc. get the lion’s share of ad dollars, and a smattering of smaller platforms like Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. get the rest. The San Francisco-based company, which serves as a sort of digital bulletin board for pictures and ideas for furniture, fashion, weddings, recipes and more, has a direct line to millions of people ...