This year, only a handful of tech companies went public and this is being blamed for late-stage capital funding.
This development for a number of experts could only mean one thing: that the market will most likely see an increase in tech IPO in 2017.
If you are wondering which of the tech darlings are going to jump into the fray, there are several firms that are already widely rumored to go public.
Widely Anticipated Tech IPOs
Snapchat has undergone key changes including the adoption of a new name in anticipation for its 2017 IPO. So far, its purported March debut is expected to become the largest IPO in recent memory, only trailing the value of e-commerce platform Alibaba which went public in September 2014 with a $170.9 billion IPO. Snap Inc. could fetch as much as $25 billion.
The company, however, will not get to enjoy its position for long as other tech IPOs will likely topple it from its perch. AirBnB is a case in point. This popular homestay network is also expected to go public and its value hovers within the $30 billion mark.
Next year's largest tech IPO could very well turn out to be Uber. The popular ride-sharing service has just added an additional $3.5 billion to its coffers last June thanks to the investment of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. By the time it goes public, its value is estimated to be around $62 billion.
Finally, Spotify is also one of the tech companies looking at 2017 as its IPO year. It recently withdrew from a potential merger with SoundCloud in order to focus on the challenges of going public. Last June, the Wall Street Journal has estimated that its value is already around $8.5 billion.
2016 Vs. 2017
As previously stated, 2016 is an uneventful IPO year and it will go down in history as the worst in terms of IPO returns since 2003. Analysts believe that 2017 will be more than robust. Aside from the pent-up demand and the surge in late-stage round of investments, the market could also benefit from the possibility of less regulatory environment under Donald Trump's presidency.
It is also worth noting that after the initial shock of Trump's electoral victory, the stock market has already started to rally. More analysts are now expressing upbeat outlooks for 2017 as the so-called private-market pullback is expected to ease.
Regardless of the reason for the potential strong tech IPO space, the consensus is that once Snap Inc. goes public, it will open the floodgates, with the flurry of tech IPOs joining the club, continuing the streak way until 2018.
