Snap IPO means $50 million for Bay Area school that invested $15,000

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The parent company of Snapchat closed on a high note in its Wall Street debut. Snap opened at $17 a share and quickly jumped, closing at $24.48 a share. That's about a 44 percent hike, making two former Stanford University students multi-billionaires.

On Thursday morning, co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange.

They're not the only ones celebrating. A Bay Area school is also expected to get a lot richer.

The head of the Saint Francis Growth Fund said they invested $15,000 in Snapchat very early on, and the school has a little more than 2 million shares.

With the price closing on the first day of trading at $24.48, that's nearly $50 million.

So how did this happen?

Barry Eggers from the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, who's also head of the Saint Francis growth fund, wrote in a blog that he first discovered the power of Snapchat five years ago.

His daughter, a sophomore at Saint Francis at the time, along with some of her friends, explained how popular it was. He made a big investment and it's paying off for his firm and Saint Francis.

Saint Francis officials wouldn't get into specifics about where the money will go, but they did say some of it would go to student scholarships and subsidized tuition along with upgrading the facilities.

Students are excited. "I think it's a big opportunity for Saint Francis for them to improve upon their facilities," student Jeevan Prakash said.

Private schools aren't cheap in Silicon Valley. It costs $16,700 a year to send a student to Saint Francis.

The school, through its endowment fund, gave out $2.75 million in tuition assistance this year.