In private markets, information is hard to come by. For limited partners, venture capital funds and VC wonks, insights into upcoming liquidity events can signal the heating up of initial public offering and M&A markets, validate (or rebut) a VC fund’s claim to have picked top winners and hint at the return potential for institutional VC allocations upon a fund’s expiration. In that light, Trusted Insight presents its December edition of The Liquidity Watch List to highlight companies with a high degree of likelihood to be acquired or pursue a public offering in the near future.
The second half of 2016 proved more promising for liquidity events with increasing M&A activity, particularly for non-tech incumbents. This was evidenced by Wal-Mart’s acquisition of Jet and Unilever’s acquisition of Dollar Shave Club in August and July, respectively. And while the number of tech initial public offerings in 2016 were down compared to recent years, there has been a growing pipeline of IPO candidates primed for favorable 2017 public markets.
In October and November, Trusted Insight forecasted that in the next 13 months Spotify, Snapchat, AppDynamics, Okta and Palantir will issue an initial public offering and Lyft and DocuSign will likely be acquired. This month, we maintain those positions and add two new private companies to the watchlist.
MongoDB
Founded: 2007
Description: MongoDB is a NoSQL database engine that generates revenue through licensing backup and automation software, security features and enterprise consulting and training.
Total Funding Raised: $312 million
Latest Financing: $80 million Series F preferred equity financing on January 9, 2015 at a post-money valuation of $1.8 billion
Notable Investors: Goldman Sachs Group, VSL Partners, BlackRock, EMC Ventures, Fidelity Investments, KG Investments, Salesforce Ventures, T. Rowe Price, In-Q-Tel, Intel Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Union Square Ventures, Aeon Funds and Altimeter Capital Management
Expected Liquidity Event: IPO
Argument: MongoDB has been a unicorn since 2013, and its recent executive team replacements signal a potential move to the public market.
Last year, the company hired Michael Gordon as chief financial officer, Carlos Delatorre as chief revenue officer and Meagen Eisenberg as chief marketing officer. Previously Gordon was the CFO at Yodle, a marketing company where he filed paperwork for an IPO (the deal has since been postponed) and was also a managing director at Merrill Lynch where he spearheaded IPO and M&A deals. In addition, with the company’s last funding round taking place nearly two years ago, an IPO would provide a fresh source of capital to sustain its business expansion. With the 2017 public tech markets expected to be strong, MongoDB is likely to time a public debut by end of next year.
Cloudera
Founded: 2008
Description: This Palo Alto-based company provides an open-source software framework, software support and training services to improve big data integration for enterprises.
Total Funding Raised: $1.04 billion
Latest Financing: $740 million Series F preferred equity financing on May 22, 2014 at a post-money valuation of $4.11 billion
Notable Investors: The Capital Group Companies, Intel Capital, MicroVentures, Newbury Ventures, Vertex Ventures, DAG Ventures, Fidelity Investments, Glynn Capital Management, GV, MSD Capital, T. Rowe Price, Hartford Financial Services Group, Rising Tide Fund, Ignition Venture Partners, In-Q-Tel, Meritech Capital Partners, Greylock Partners, MD Pham, Accel Partners and Firsthand Capital Management
Expected Liquidity Event: IPO
Argument: In an April 2016 interview with Forbes, CEO Tom Reilly said, “We fully intend to be a public company...We are of a size and scale today to be a successful public company.” Reilly's Cloudera's impressive lineup of investors and partners -- tech giants Intel, Oracle, SAS, Teradata and Dell -- furthers Reilly's argument of the firm's long-term viability. Cloudera's public debut, Reilly said, will depend largely on tech market conditions. An IPO would provide Cloudera additional capital to solidify dominance over its most direct competitor Hortonworks, a company that is currently valued eight times lower.
For questions, comments or story ideas, please contact us at editorial@thetrustedinsight.com.
Moving forward, this monthly series will become a quarterly series in order to better highlight changes in market dynamics that impact liquidity events.
The second half of 2016 proved more promising for liquidity events with increasing M&A activity, particularly for non-tech incumbents. This was evidenced by Wal-Mart’s acquisition of Jet and Unilever’s acquisition of Dollar Shave Club in August and July, respectively. And while the number of tech initial public offerings in 2016 were down compared to recent years, there has been a growing pipeline of IPO candidates primed for favorable 2017 public markets.
In October and November, Trusted Insight forecasted that in the next 13 months Spotify, Snapchat, AppDynamics, Okta and Palantir will issue an initial public offering and Lyft and DocuSign will likely be acquired. This month, we maintain those positions and add two new private companies to the watchlist.
MongoDB
Founded: 2007
Description: MongoDB is a NoSQL database engine that generates revenue through licensing backup and automation software, security features and enterprise consulting and training.
Total Funding Raised: $312 million
Latest Financing: $80 million Series F preferred equity financing on January 9, 2015 at a post-money valuation of $1.8 billion
Notable Investors: Goldman Sachs Group, VSL Partners, BlackRock, EMC Ventures, Fidelity Investments, KG Investments, Salesforce Ventures, T. Rowe Price, In-Q-Tel, Intel Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Union Square Ventures, Aeon Funds and Altimeter Capital Management
Expected Liquidity Event: IPO
Argument: MongoDB has been a unicorn since 2013, and its recent executive team replacements signal a potential move to the public market.
Last year, the company hired Michael Gordon as chief financial officer, Carlos Delatorre as chief revenue officer and Meagen Eisenberg as chief marketing officer. Previously Gordon was the CFO at Yodle, a marketing company where he filed paperwork for an IPO (the deal has since been postponed) and was also a managing director at Merrill Lynch where he spearheaded IPO and M&A deals. In addition, with the company’s last funding round taking place nearly two years ago, an IPO would provide a fresh source of capital to sustain its business expansion. With the 2017 public tech markets expected to be strong, MongoDB is likely to time a public debut by end of next year.
Cloudera
Founded: 2008
Description: This Palo Alto-based company provides an open-source software framework, software support and training services to improve big data integration for enterprises.
Total Funding Raised: $1.04 billion
Latest Financing: $740 million Series F preferred equity financing on May 22, 2014 at a post-money valuation of $4.11 billion
Notable Investors: The Capital Group Companies, Intel Capital, MicroVentures, Newbury Ventures, Vertex Ventures, DAG Ventures, Fidelity Investments, Glynn Capital Management, GV, MSD Capital, T. Rowe Price, Hartford Financial Services Group, Rising Tide Fund, Ignition Venture Partners, In-Q-Tel, Meritech Capital Partners, Greylock Partners, MD Pham, Accel Partners and Firsthand Capital Management
Expected Liquidity Event: IPO
Argument: In an April 2016 interview with Forbes, CEO Tom Reilly said, “We fully intend to be a public company...We are of a size and scale today to be a successful public company.” Reilly's Cloudera's impressive lineup of investors and partners -- tech giants Intel, Oracle, SAS, Teradata and Dell -- furthers Reilly's argument of the firm's long-term viability. Cloudera's public debut, Reilly said, will depend largely on tech market conditions. An IPO would provide Cloudera additional capital to solidify dominance over its most direct competitor Hortonworks, a company that is currently valued eight times lower.
For questions, comments or story ideas, please contact us at editorial@thetrustedinsight.com.
Moving forward, this monthly series will become a quarterly series in order to better highlight changes in market dynamics that impact liquidity events.