2019 was good, 2020 is expected to be great.
Will they or won’t they?
2019 was a good year for unicorns such as Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, and Slack, all of whom saw an IPO.
“2019 was an exceptional year in terms of very high-profile severely unprofitable mega unicorns going public — or attempting to go public — and this dynamic is unlikely to repeat in 2020. What 2019 proved is that despite the ability to raise venture capital, public market investors are still discerning and unwilling to reward risky companies just because they have high private market valuations.” -Paul Condra, lead emerging tech analyst, PitchBook
Analysts are watching the following companies, all of which are deemed IPO candidates in 2020:
Airbnb
Casper
Didi Chuxing
DoorDash
Robinhood
Droom
Gitlab
Palantir Technologies
Experts are calling for another strong IPO market in 2020, especially during the first half of the year, to avoid potential market turbulence ahead of the election.
However, companies are now likely to be mindful of the “WeWork effect,” According to Phil Haslett, chief revenue officer at EquityZen, today “there’s more focus on profitability, less on outright revenue growth, and more focus on corporate governance.”