Why investors are going gaga over a tiny, $35 computer

Investors are snapping up the shares of a British maker of tiny computers after it went public on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday.

Investors are snapping up the shares of a British maker of tiny computers after it went public on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday. Raspberry Pi stock soared as much as 40% in early trade before paring those gains slightly by 11.54 a.m. ET to trade at £3.85 ($4.90), still about 38% above their listing price. The initial public offering (IPO) valued the startup at nearly £542 million ($689 million). The Cambridge-based company started life in 2012 as a commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charity founded four years earlier to promote computer science in schools. It has since become known as the maker of small but fully fledged computers that fit on a single board. Some of them cost as little as $35. These boards, some the size of a credit card, can be connected to bigger devices, such as a desktop screen, or used as components to power machines such as smart speakers and robots. To date, Raspberry Pi has sold more than 60 million computers worldwide, according to its website. Industrial customers, such as tech companies and manufacturers, buy more than 70% of its computers, with the devices cropping up in everything from high-tech farming systems to self-pouring beer taps. It sells the rest to education providers and computer science “enthusiasts,” according to its website.