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Who has gone public at valuation greater than $20B? Facebook? Is Airbnb a bigger company than Facebook? I just don't understand how these late stage investor

Who has gone public at valuation greater than $20B? Facebook? Is Airbnb a bigger company than Facebook? I just don't understand how these late stage investors think someone is going to take them out of their trade at a higher valuation. Here's a table of recent IPO's. I have to do the math to get to the market caps, but I don't think any of them is above $20B. http://www.renaissancecapital.com/ipohome/pricings/priced.aspx http://www.renaissancecapital.com/ipohome/pricings/priced.as... In short, where is the greater fool for these late stage valuations?

mrgordon 12y ago
Alibaba ended their first day at about $231 billion and I haven't heard anyone say they were 10x overvalued lately: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/19/alibaba-shares-price-americas-biggest-ipo http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/19/alibaba-shar... Other big ones include UPS ($60 billion), AT&T ($58 billion), Facebook ($81 billion), Kraft ($54 billion), GM ($49.5 billion), and Visa ($44 billion) plus a bunch of non-US ones. This article has a great table of them: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/05/alibaba-biggest-ipo-by-market-value-of-all-time/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/05/alibaba-biggest-ip...
- jgalt212 12y ago
  Other than Alibaba and Facebook, none of your examples are start-ups. There are many more $20B private valuation companies right than there are historical examples of such companies making it to IPO.
vskarine 12y ago
Recently, I see a lot of new comers to private tech investing, particularly established wall street companies like Coatue, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, etc. It seems like with recent recession, new regulations, and low interest rates, it is no longer very profitable just to be in the public stock market and they are trying to seek other options to bring large returns and justify large salaries/bonuses. But these bets are way more risky... Basically we are back in the same corner of financial institutions taking enormous risks for enormous rewards with no regulation.
pbreit 12y ago
For a late stage investor, 20% would be a huge return (i.e., a double in 4-5 years). Plus they have tremendous downside protection in the form of preferences so it's almost a no-brainer.

mrgordon 12y ago

Alibaba ended their first day at about $231 billion and I haven't heard anyone say they were 10x overvalued lately: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/19/alibaba-shares-price-americas-biggest-ipo http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/19/alibaba-shar... Other big ones include UPS ($60 billion), AT&T ($58 billion), Facebook ($81 billion), Kraft ($54 billion), GM ($49.5 billion), and Visa ($44 billion) plus a bunch of non-US ones. This article has a great table of them: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/05/alibaba-biggest-ipo-by-market-value-of-all-time/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/05/alibaba-biggest-ip...

jgalt212 12y ago
Other than Alibaba and Facebook, none of your examples are start-ups. There are many more $20B private valuation companies right than there are historical examples of such companies making it to IPO.

vskarine 12y ago

Recently, I see a lot of new comers to private tech investing, particularly established wall street companies like Coatue, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, etc. It seems like with recent recession, new regulations, and low interest rates, it is no longer very profitable just to be in the public stock market and they are trying to seek other options to bring large returns and justify large salaries/bonuses. But these bets are way more risky... Basically we are back in the same corner of financial institutions taking enormous risks for enormous rewards with no regulation.

pbreit 12y ago

For a late stage investor, 20% would be a huge return (i.e., a double in 4-5 years). Plus they have tremendous downside protection in the form of preferences so it's almost a no-brainer.