Prediction
IPOs as a proportion of total VC exit value will hit another decade high*
*For additional background, see our original post.
Update: A flood of IPOs through 1H 2019
2Q saw unicorn IPOs drive a record-breaking quarterly VC exit value of $138.3B, pushing the total 1H 2019 exit value to an impressive $188.5B (per the 2Q 2019 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor). Rideshare giants Uber and Lyft made up 47.4% of this total, even with other household names like Slack, Pinterest and Zoom contributing significant amounts of capital. What’s more, IPOs accounted for 82.9% of total exit value—which puts things on track for a decade high as we originally predicted earlier this year.
Here are some recent notable IPOs, sorted by pre-money valuation:
Upcoming US VC-Backed IPOs
Despite the historic exit activity so far this year, a number of companies are poised to go public in the near future. Here are some prominent upcoming IPOs—ordered by value of most recent post-money valuation:
- The We Company - $47.00B
- Peloton - $4.15B
- Postmates - $1.85B
- Oportun - $873.21M
- RAPT Therapeutics - $272.00M
- Cirius Therapeutics - $132.5M
Conclusion
With 48 IPOs through the first half of this year, going public is proving to be a viable path to liquidity for VC-backed companies—even for companies that aren’t unicorns. Given that a number of companies are already prepared to IPO, it seems likely that exit value will continue to rise. Still, a significant public equity market downturn remains a potential headwind for IPOs gaining share of exit value, although this would also likely slow corporate acquisition activity.
Get more insight into 2019’s major VC trends with our 2019 VC Outlook 1H Follow Up report.