Raspberry Pi Foundation boss waves off listing rumours, says biz discussions may have been 'over-interpreted'

If you want floating Pis, check out the International Space Station

Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, has dismissed speculation over a possible stock market float, telling The Register: "It's not something we're actively pursuing."

Over the weekend a report in UK national newspaper The Telegraph suggested a potential floatation of the foundation was in the works. A valuation of £300m was mooted.

The computer maker is a UK success story and has been on a roll in recent months, launching the computer-in-a-keyboard Pi 400 and dipping a toe in the microcontroller market with the Pico.

The eponymous Raspberry Pi computer, the original version of which was launched just over nine years ago, is nearing the 40 million mark for units sold.

As well as landing in the educational sector, the diminutive machines have found their way into the corporate world and have attracted a devoted following of tinkerers thanks to the ease with which hardware can be added via the general purpose input/output (GPIO) connectors.

A pair of the computers (in Astro Pi guise) were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake's 2015-2016 Principia mission. The duo run student code utilising the sensors fitted to the hardware. The project has continued over the years since, and a fresh set of 256GB SD cards were launched on the recent NG-15 Cygnus cargo mission.

"Of course," said Upton of the floatation rumours, "we speak to advisors all the time about how we might fund the future growth of the business." He then pondered if one of those chats might have been "over-interpreted" somewhat.

The foundation itself appears to be in rude health despite some well-documented hiccups around its Pi 4 flagship in the USB-C and heating departments. Upton told us back in January that one particular challenge was keeping the channel fed amid supply chain challenges; today he remarked that keeping the popular products on the shelves remained tricky.

"Nice problem to have," he added. ®