Online message board operator Reddit is reportedly seeking to hire lawyers and investment bankers as advisers for a US IPO that could see it valued at more than $15bn.

Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet”, was in the spotlight earlier this year when day traders on its forum sparked a huge rally in shorted stocks such as GameStop and AMC.

The online platform is now seeking to hire advisers as it plans to go public on Wall Street, according to first reports in Reuters from two people familiar with the matter.

Reddit has undergone several recent fundraising rounds that have built investors’ anticipation of an IPO in the near future, including a private fundraising round last month that valued it at $10bn – after hitting $6bn in February.

But the platform is aiming to shatter this valuation with a goal of more than $15bn at IPO, according to one of the sources reported by Reuters.

The exact size of the IPO and timescale are subject to market conditions, but the news will not come as too much of a surprise after CEO Steve Huffman told the New York Times in March that Reddit was “working towards” going public but had not planned timings yet.

Amid these reports, the social media site sparked more IPO predictions when it appointed its first ever chief financial officer – former Snap executive Drew Vollero – in Spring.

A free-to-use platform, Reddit gains most of its revenue from online advertising, and has around 52m daily active users.

In the second quarter of the year, the site raked in $100m in advertising revenue – an almost threefold increase on the same period last year, pre-GameStop.

Reddit has been contacted for comment.