Snapchat is trying to convince investors that it won't fall into Twitter's malaise, says report

Snapchat's parent company is pitching potential IPO investors that it should be considered in a class with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) — that is, above Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), unnamed sources told The Wall Street Journal.

Bankers with Snap's IPO roadshow have cast the company's leader as an innovator, like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg , who can reach beyond the company's ephemeral messaging platform to become a pre-eminent content and media company, the sources told the Journal, in an article published Thursday.

That also means that Snap hopes to grow its share price beyond the IPO, something Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) has struggled to do. Though its disappearing images are beloved by teens, Snap must sell investors that it is worth the hype.

Snap is reportedly looking for a public offering worth about $25 billion , opening the highly valued social media company to regular investors. The company is notoriously secretive, and the disclosures required by an IPO could provide new revelations about Snap's inner workings.

Snap, like Facebook, is expanding what its technology can do and becoming more friendly for advertisers, said Kate Mitchell, co-founder of technology investment firm Scale Venture Partners. In Snap's case, that means scooping up rivals around augmented reality, said Mitchell, whose firm invests in marketing companies like BrightRoll and HubSpot.

"Like Twitter and Facebook, they've developed themselves initially as a social environment — one of the fastest-growing ever, by the way — particularly for millennials," Mitchell told CNBC's " Squawk Alley " on Thursday. "I think they're off to a very promising start. They're thinking big early on, which is smart."

For more on the story, see the article at WSJ.com.