Goodbye, Unicorns. Hello, IPOs!

Silicon Valley used to avoid the public markets. Now IPOs are back—because many startup founders desperately need them.

- Erin Griffith

AFTER YEARS of avoiding the public markets, Silicon Valley suddenly has IPO fever. Snap’s successful debut, paired with solid early performances from MuleSoft and Okta, has investors—both the Wall Street kind and the Sand Hill Road kind—making squee sounds of excitement.

They’re so exuberant, one VC even declared on CNBC that this year “could be one of the best for the IPO market since the dotcom boom”. It may be the first time anyone has referenced the 1999–2000 tech bubble as aspirational.

But pinch-yourself valuations aren’t the only thing today’s IPO candidates have in common with their dotbomb forebears: They’re also losing money. Snap, which lost $515 million (Rs 3,253 crore) last year but is currently valued at $24.5 billion, is a particularly egregious offender. But enterprise technology companies Cloudera, Okta, and MuleSoft also disclosed 2016 losses of $187 million, $83.5 million, and $50 million, respectively.