For high tech IPOs, 2014 was a year unlike any seen since 2000, when 108 billion dollars were raised in new stock market listings in the midst of the new economy boom. Although in the meantime there have been the two record quotations of Silicon Valley (that of Facebook, around 18 billion in 2012, and that of Twitter above 22 billion the following year), 2014 was the year of the new exploit, dragged by the IPO of Alibaba which alone was worth $25 billion.
But what is there to expect for 2015? To venture an analysis we think Forbes, which predicts "a series of IPOs smaller than that of the Chinese giant, but already significant." In first place among the technology companies that could land on the market as early as this year there is Pinterest: for the photographic social network some analysts predict a capitalization even higher than that of Facebook and Twitter. Although it is not yet particularly known and used in Europe, Pinterest is the second social network in the US for the percentage of traffic generated: with 5,5% in September 2014 it is well behind Facebook (22,4%) but clearly ahead of Twitter (dropped below 1% this year) and to Google+ and LinkedIn. The quote is in the air.
More delicate but no less interesting is the question Snapchat: The 23-year-old creator of the app, Evan Spiegel, rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook and then a $4 billion offer from Google. “Is he one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs ever, or a raving lunatic?” asks Forbes, who however points out that a recent loan brought the company's value to 10 billion dollars. Definitely ready for an IPO.
Many analysts see well in the stock market in 2015 too Spotify: The Swedish music-sharing company gained ground on rival Pandora and reached 10 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of the year just ended. The turnover of Spotify, which is based in Luxembourg, is close to a billion dollars, and the capitalization could according to experts be worth ten times that.
But the most interesting quotation, expected in the next three years and therefore perhaps already in 2015, should be that of Uber. The controversial ride-sharing startup, founded in 2009 in San Francisco and now present in 52 countries around the world, raised another 1,2 billion dollars in December. This operation has led the app most hated by taxi drivers to reach a record value of over 40 billion dollars, and could be the clear signal of an imminent IPO.
To complete the podium of the most capitalized young startups (with 5 or less years of life) in 2014 there are two other companies slated to land on the Stock Exchange: Airbnb e Dropbox. The first, which has recently changed management, is valued at 13 billion dollars, while the file sharing system is worth at least 10. Forbes then indicates other high tech companies, so to speak minor ones, which could also be planning a 'hypo. These are Box (the offshoot of Dropbox that deals with storage, worth 2,4 billion dollars), Egnyte (competitor of the last two), the New York-based AppNexus (worth 1,2 billion), the app developer StartApp (350 million users), Actifio (specialized in copy data virtualization), and Kaltura (open source video that recently raised $100 million).
