Year 2014 was the biggest year for IPOs since 2000. And if speculations are to be believed, the trend is expected to continue in the year 2015. Investors are expecting a number of companies to go the IPO route in 2015. This is the first among a series of articles that we will bring to you about startup ventures going the IPO route.
In this article we cover the first five startups that we believe could go the IPO way in 2015. GoDaddy, who was also widely speculated to file for an IPO in 2015, recently went public. The GoDaddy stock popped over 30% on its initial day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “GDDY (GDDY).
Below are the companies which are expected to follow GoDaddy.
Uber
Uber, the company leading the current wave of tech industry “unicorns” -a.k.a startups worth more than 1 billion dollars, is on the top of the list of investors.The company which has raised billions of dollars in investment till now is expected to be valued at $41 billion. Uber has also been embroiled in a number of controversies due to flak from an executive’s inappropriate comments about women journalists and its questionable oversight of drivers. Uber however is also the most highly valued startup ever.
Airbnb
The poster child of sharing economy, Airbnb is another company that investors are hoping would go public soon. The company has raised $1 billion in total in funding till now and is expected to be valued at $13 billion. The company has always managed to remain profitable and has minimal capital spending requirements, means that an IPO isn’t really needed. However the management looks open to the idea of an IPO. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Chesky, Cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said that “we will do it at a time when it benefits the company, when we have a good reason.”
Spotify
Spotify, which started in Sweden in 2008 is a leading subscription based music streaming service. The service is now available in 58 countries and offers millions of songs in two versions: free with advertising, and an all-access paid version that in most countries costs about $10 a month.
Spotify says it now has 60 million users around the world, 15 million of whom pay.A large unpaid user base will be a major cause of concern for investors when the company goes public.
Spotify is expected to be valued at more than $6 billion after its latest round of funding.
Dropbox
Dropbox which operates in the crowded space of online storage has more than 300 million users using their service.Its biggest challenge, however, has been in getting consumers to upgrade from its free storage service to its more extensive paid storage services, where it competes directly with Box. Box, its rival in online storage, held an IPO recently. Box’s shares have risen 50% from their IPO price of $14.
Dropbox, recently hired Vanessa Wittman, the former finance chief of Google, as a CFO raising speculations of an impending IPO.
Pinterest, which focuses on digital images that users assemble on a virtual pinboard, is currently the third-largest social media site, with an estimated 70 million users. Pinterest is valued at $5 billion. It has raised three quarters of a billion dollars in venture capital funding since 2010.
