Tag Archives: valuation

Another quick look at data on public tech companies : loss, loss and more loss? (1/2)

I was motivated a few days ago to look at the work I have been doing for years on public tech. companies, their cap. tables, their overall financial performance. If you do not know what I am talking about, you can have a look at my past analyses on 600, then 700 companies through the tag 600 (former) startups. I’ve now 787 such cap. tables.

It’s been known that there are differences with fields such as biotech. vs. software/internet. About biotech, check Are Biotechnology Startups Different? Regarding software, and more specifically Internet or ecommerce companies, I have not done a similar analysis but I began to notice a while ago that these companies were also money-losing companies at IPO. In the past, you were only going public in IT when you were beginning to be profitable. This was more than 20 years ago! The recent argument for going public while losing money was that these companies would make a profit once they have reached a threshold in size. Amazon was not profitable for many years after its IPO.

But isn’t that argument flawed? Will Uber or AirBnB and similar platform companies ever make a profit? Too early to say and the future is unpredictable. But I thought I would look at the current situation of my 787 companies and have a quick look. So before studying the profit profile of IT companies (this will be in part 2, my next post), here are the basics. There is a total of 435 public companies –  353 companies have been acquired, liquidated (315) and a few are still private (37). My next post should follow soon.

Market Cap # $B
$1T 4 7’253
$100B 17 5’274
$10B 88 3’273
$1B+ 168 623
<$1B 150 55
Total 427 16’478

These numbers again show the power law distribution (and not Gaussian) and here is the long list of names for those interested:

$1,000B+ $100B+ $10B+ $1B+
Amazon Adobe Inc. 10x Genomics, Inc. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc.
Apple Alibaba Group Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. 1Life Healthcare, Inc.
Google Amgen Inc. Adyen N.V. 2U, Inc.
Microsoft Cisco Systems, Inc. Affirm Holdings, Inc. 8×8, Inc.
Facebook, Inc. Airbnb, Inc. 908 Devices Inc.
Intel Corporation Akamai Technologies, Inc. AbCellera Biologics Inc.
JD.com, Inc. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Netflix, Inc. ANSYS, Inc. Acceleron Pharma Inc.
NVIDIA Corporation AppLovin Corporation Accolade, Inc.
Oracle Corporation Arista Networks, Inc. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp
PayPal Holdings, Inc. Atlassian Corporation Plc Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Pinduoduo Inc. Avalara, Inc. Alector, Inc.
salesforce.com, inc. Baidu, Inc. Aligos Therapeutics, Inc.
Shopify Inc. Bilibili Inc. Allogene Therapeutics, Inc.
Square, Inc. Bill.com Holdings, Inc. AlloVir, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. BioNTech SE American Well Corporation
Xiaomi Corporation Check Point Software Amyris, Inc.
Chegg, Inc. Anaplan, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc. Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Cloudflare, Inc. Asana, Inc.
Coinbase Global, Inc. Asetek A/S
Coupang, Inc. Avast Plc
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Axonics, Inc.
CureVac N.V. Beam Therapeutics Inc.
Datadog, Inc. Berkeley Lights, Inc.
Delivery Hero SE Beyond Meat, Inc.
DocuSign, Inc. BigCommerce Holdings, Inc.
DoorDash, Inc. BlackBerry Limited
Dropbox, Inc. Bloom Energy Corporation
eBay Inc. bluebird bio, Inc.
Elastic N.V. Blueprint Medicines Corp
Electronic Arts Inc. Box, Inc.
Enphase Energy, Inc. C3.ai, Inc.
Equinix, Inc. (REIT) C4 Therapeutics, Inc.
F5 Networks, Inc. Ciena Corporation
Farfetch Limited Cimpress plc
Fortinet, Inc. Cirrus Logic, Inc.
Garmin Ltd. Compass, Inc.
GoDaddy Inc. ContextLogic Inc.
HelloFresh SE Corcept Therapeutics
Horizon Therapeutics Coursera, Inc.
HubSpot, Inc. CRISPR Therapeutics AG
Illumina, Inc. Criteo S.A.
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. CyberArk Software Ltd.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc Deliveroo plc
Lam Research Corporation Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Logitech International S.A. Design Therapeutics, Inc.
Lyft, Inc. Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Marvell Technology, Inc. DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc.
Micron Technology, Inc. Domo, Inc.
Moderna, Inc. Eargo, Inc.
NIO Inc. Edgewise Therapeutics, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. Editas Medicine, Inc.
Okta, Inc. Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Palantir Technologies Inc. Eventbrite, Inc.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. Exelixis, Inc.
Pinterest, Inc. Extreme Networks, Inc.
Procore Technologies, Inc. Fastly, Inc.
Qorvo, Inc. Fate Therapeutics, Inc.
QuantumScape Corporation FireEye, Inc.
Roblox Corporation Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc.
Seagen Inc. Fiverr International Ltd.
Snap Inc. Flywire Corporation
Snowflake Inc. FormFactor, Inc.
SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. Generation Bio Co.
Splunk Inc. Gevo, Inc.
Spotify Technology S.A. Glaukos Corporation
StoneCo Ltd. Globant S.A.
Synopsys, Inc. GoPro, Inc.
Teladoc Health, Inc. Gracell Biotechnologies Inc.
Tuya Inc. Groupon, Inc.
Twilio Inc. Grubhub Inc.
Twitter, Inc. Guidewire Software, Inc.
Uber Technologies, Inc. Idorsia Ltd
Unity Software Inc. Inari Medical, Inc.
Upstart Holdings, Inc. Infinera Corporation
VeriSign, Inc. InMode Ltd.
Vipshop Holdings Inogen, Inc.
Wayfair Inc. Inphi Corporation
Workday, Inc. Inspire Medical Systems, Inc.
XPeng Inc. Instil Bio, Inc.
Yandex N.V. Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.
Zalando SE iRobot Corporation
Zendesk, Inc. Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Zillow Group, Inc. JFrog Ltd.
Zoom Video JOYY Inc.
Zscaler, Inc. Juniper Networks, Inc.
Zynga Inc. Karuna Therapeutics, Inc.
Keros Therapeutics, Inc.
Kymera Therapeutics, Inc.
Lemonade, Inc.
LendingClub Corporation
MacroGenics, Inc.
MaxLinear, Inc.
Medallia, Inc.
Mimecast Limited
Model N, Inc.
Momo Inc.
NanoString Technologies, Inc.
Natera, Inc.
nCino, Inc.
New Work SE
nLIGHT, Inc.
Nutanix, Inc.
Olo Inc.
ON24, Inc.
Opendoor Technologies Inc.
Oscar Health, Inc.
Overstock.com, Inc.
PagerDuty, Inc.
Phreesia, Inc.
Pluralsight, Inc.
Poshmark, Inc.
Power Integrations, Inc.
Prelude Therapeutics Inc
PTC Therapeutics, Inc.
PubMatic, Inc.
Pulmonx Corporation
Pure Storage, Inc.
QAD Inc.
Qualys, Inc.
Quotient Technology Inc.
Rambus Inc.
Rapid7, Inc.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Redfin Corporation
Revolution Medicines, Inc.
Ribbon Communications Inc.
Rubius Therapeutics, Inc.
Sana Biotechnology, Inc.
Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc.
Schrödinger, Inc.
Seer, Inc.
Silicon Laboratories Inc.
Smartsheet Inc.
Soitec S.A.
Sonos, Inc.
Sprout Social, Inc.
Squarespace, Inc.
Stoke Therapeutics, Inc.
STORE Capital Corporation
Sumo Logic, Inc.
Sunrun Inc.
Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
SVMK Inc.
Swissquote Group Holding Ltd
Synaptics Incorporated
Talend S.A.
Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc.
Tenable Holdings, Inc.
The Honest Company, Inc.
ThredUp Inc.
Trustpilot Group plc
Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc.
Upland Software, Inc.
Upwork Inc.
Vaxcyte, Inc.
Veracyte, Inc.
Viasat, Inc.
Vroom, Inc.
Xencor, Inc.
Xperi Holding Corporation
Yelp Inc.
Yext, Inc.
Zhihu Inc.
ZipRecruiter, Inc.
Zuora, Inc.
Zymergen Inc.

Data about equity of 600 startups – comments (7)

A final post (for now) about the data about 600 (former) startups. So what have they become today in April 2020?

First a quick point of caution: I counted some companies twice, because I had looked at their equity strutcure at different points in time: Alibaba had two IPOs in 2007 in HK and 2014 in the USA, Esperion had 2 filings in 2000 and 2013. This is not a big deal, except if you count Alibaba’s value twice!

So out of the about 600 former startups, I found that
– 20 were still private (they may have recently filed for IPOs though)
– 12 were private again after an IPO
– 13 had stopped their activity (often through bankruptcy)
– 225 had been acquired or merged with another company (Merger and acquisitions – M&As)
– 331 were still public.

So let us have a closer look at M&As and public companies:

On the M&A side, the main acquisition value comes from biotech, with a $5B average value whereas software or internet is a little les below $3B.

On the public side, I will let you discover depending on your interest about, given the field, the number of companies, employees, cumulative market capitalizations, sales, profits, then age of companies and current average price to sales (PS), price to earnings (PE) and an interesting personal metrics, price ot employees in $M (Pemp).

Data about equity of 600 startups – comments (6)

Sixth post of comments on the 600 startup data. Today, it’s about the valuation of startups.

I had touched the topic on page 615 of the pdf. Here is the data again.

Be aware that these numbers are not typical of traditionnal companies. They show that startups going public are of a speculative nature, with a promise of very high-growth in the future. The multiples are very high and in the case of earnings, in fact most startups do not make a profit at IPO – about one out five!

Interestingly Silicon Valley does not have the highest multiples, but Europe is behing the USA.

The tables give the PS ratio (price to sales – ratio between valuation and sales) and PE ratio (price to earnings – ratio between valuation and profits) and the number of startups taken into account each time. The following curves show the PS values by 5-year periods and by year.

If you are lost, here are slides I have used in the past and if you want to get the excel file, send me an email.