Snap Inc.’s public debut last week was no disappearing act.

After months of buildup, the Venice-based tech darling raised $3.4 billion through the sale of 200 million shares. The stock closed at $24.48 – 44 percent above the $17 price point set by the company’s bankers. The initial pop gave Snap a first-day market capitalization of $28.3 billion, which makes it the fifth-largest public company in Los Angeles by that metric.

While demand for the stock was high, the oversubscribed offering and initial bump means Snap left about $1.5 billion on the table based on its day-one closing price. However, experts said the result is preferable to an undersubscribed offering that didn’t gain traction with investors.

“It’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen with the market,” said Muizz Kheraj, managing director of West L.A.’s FocalPoint Partners. “If you come in priced too high and don’t get an oversubscribed offering, you might not get a pop at all.”

Adding to the complexity of the pricing equation was the lull in the IPO market for tech companies over the past year and a half, according to Brandon Quartararo, senior vice president of Brentwood-based Intrepid Investment Bankers.

“The underwriters had to balance the fact that it’s been a real quiet period for tech companies over the last 12 to 18 months with what the demand for Snap’s stock would be,” Quartararo said. “Given the circumstances, I think they were willing to leave a little on the table.”

Snap’s impressive haul was particularly lucrative for early investors and employees. Big winners include Lightspeed Venture Partners, which parlayed $485,000 in seed funding plus $7.5 million in later funding into $2.1 billion in cash and stock after selling 4.6 million shares in the offering. Benchmark Capital also saw enormous returns on its $24 million investment, walking away with nearly $3 billion worth of shares and more than $180 million in cash.

The company’s huge debut also boosted the net worth of Snap co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Spiegel’s net worth stands at close to $6.3 billion thanks to a stock award for taking the company public, while Murphy is worth $5.4 billion. Those numbers would place the executives at No. 7 and No. 9, respectively, on the Business Journal’s 2016 Wealthiest Angelenos list.

Now that Snap is public, the pair – along with the company – will have to perform with the whole world watching. With plateauing user-growth numbers and serious challenges being mounted by social media behemoth Facebook Inc., the road will not be easy, said financial analysts.

“There’s a new layer of scrutiny on Snap,” Quartararo said. “Before, they had to make touch decisions, but those decisions were made in a private boardroom. Now, they have to dance with the beast that is the public market.”