
Tech's love affair with Wall Street is going to continue into 2021.
Photo: Angela Weiss/Getty Images
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Tech's love affair with Wall Street is going to continue into 2021.
The second half of 2020 has been an IPO bonanza. So far, it looks like 2021 will be more of the same.
Affirm and Roblox, which delayed their listings in 2020, are almost certain to go public, and they'll be joined by some of the biggest companies in tech, such as crypto exchange Coinbase.
Here are the IPOs you need to know about for 2021.
The gaming platform pushed off its December 2020 IPO to 2021 after deciding to reassess its pricing strategies in the wake of huge pops from the Airbnb and DoorDash IPOs. Sources told Reuters that Roblox viewed the Airbnb and DoorDash IPOs as under-priced and hoped to get a higher IPO price in the new year.
The secondhand sales platform snuck in just before the holidays, making its S-1 public at the end of December with plans to list in the new year.
Coinbase has had a tumultuous year, to say the least. While many in tech will best remember it for the controversy around its employees' politics, it's also been a major beneficiary of Bitcoin's soaring price. In December, the company announced it had confidentially filed its S-1.
Dating app company Bumble could be looking to make its match with the public markets around Valentine's Day. The company has reportedly confidentially filed for an IPO with plans to list in February, and it could value it at $6 billion to $8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
UiPath could be looking to double its valuation to over $20 billion in a 2021 IPO. The software startup, which specializes in robotic process automation, told Bloomberg in December that it had confidentially filed for an IPO. It has also reportedly picked banks in anticipation of a public offering in the first half of 2021.
Speaking of which, the other secondhand clothing retailer looking to go public announced in October that it had confidentially filed for an IPO.
The food delivery company saw a boost thanks to the pandemic, and it's only accelerated its IPO plans from there. CNBC reported that the company is eyeing a $30 billion IPO in early 2021 now that the ballot proposition for AB 5 was passed in California.
Jio Platforms may have garnered more attention in 2020, but Flipkart is still India's biggest online retailer, estimated to have had a 66% market share during the recent festive period. In 2021, investors might finally be able to get in on the action: The company has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to work on the IPO, which could raise $10 billion, valuing the company around $40 billion. For current owner Walmart, the IPO would come a year ahead of schedule: When it acquired Flipkart in 2018, it said it would list it within four years.
You might not have guessed in March that a stock trading app would be one of the biggest winners from a pandemic, yet here we are. With sports canceled and an awful lot of people stuck at home, "boredom trading" surged this year. Robinhood, which enabled many of those people to invest in the booming stock market, grew along with them: Its valuation went from $8.6 billion in July to $11.7 billion in September. The company has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO, which could value the company at over $20 billion.
The fintech might not get as much attention as some of its peers, but it's quietly built a huge business. It's reportedly working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan on an IPO, with plans to list at a $10 billion valuation.
Investors loved Snowflake's IPO, so Databricks and its enterprise AI platform could be well-positioned to go public in 2021. The company is reportedly in talks with bankers, but hasn't hired underwriters yet despite plans to go public at a "significantly higher" valuation than its current $6.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Ant was set to have the biggest IPO in history this year, with plans to raise around $35 billion. But those grand plans came to a screeching halt when Chinese authorities — reportedly directed by Xi Jinping — forced the company to pull its listing. The company is now conducting a "comprehensive self-review," and it's unclear when it will be ready to re-list: Bloomberg reports it could be as late as 2022.
Biz Carson ( @bizcarson) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol, covering Silicon Valley with a focus on startups and venture capital. Previously, she reported for Forbes and was co-editor of Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Before that, she worked for Business Insider, Gigaom, and Wired and started her career as a newspaper designer for Gannett.
Shakeel Hashim ( @shakeelhashim) is a growth manager at Protocol, based in London. He was previously an analyst at Finimize covering business and economics, and a digital journalist at News UK. His writing has appeared in The Economist and its book, Uncommon Knowledge.
With Revue and a slew of other new products, Twitter is trying hard to move past texting.
We started with 140 characters. What now?
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
Twitter was once a home for 140-character missives about your lunch. Now, it's something like the real-time nerve center of the internet. But as for what Twitter wants to be going forward? It's slightly more complicated.
In just the last few months, Twitter has rolled out Fleets, a Stories-like feature; started testing an audio-only experience called Spaces; and acquired the podcast app Breaker and the video chat app Squad. And on Tuesday, Twitter announced it was acquiring Revue, a newsletter platform. The whole 140-characters thing (which is now 280 characters, by the way) is certainly not Twitter's organizing principle anymore. So what is?
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
Kuaishou could raise just over $6 billion at a $60 billion valuation.
Kuaishou's livestreaming platform is part Twitch, part QVC.
Kuaishou has more daily active users than Twitter and Snapchat. Still, it wouldn't be all that surprising if you've never heard of the short-form video and livestreaming platform; Kuaishou maintains a relatively low profile outside of China. Within China, the Beijing-based company has charted an ambitious plan to create a platform that seamlessly blends ecommerce, livestreaming, short-form video and gaming distribution.
In the lead-up to its Hong Kong stock exchange trading debut slated for Feb. 5, Kuaishou could raise just over $6 billion at a $60 billion valuation. If Kuaishou succeeds, it will have pulled off one of the largest IPOs in recent years.
The company is expected to go public via direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in February.
Roblox CEO David Baszucki is taking the company public.
Roblox is a video game platform, though it describes itself alternatively as a "metaverse," "human co-experience platform" and "new category of human interaction." It's expected to go public via direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in February.
In simpler terms, Roblox enables developers to build games within the Roblox virtual world, which looks like a crossover between Minecraft and Lego. Developers publish and distribute their games through Roblox to an audience of some 31.1 million daily active users.
"When we go social, we're not going back," says co-founder Tracy Sun.
Tracy Sun is Poshmark's co-founder and SVP of new markets.
Investors were keen to buy into Poshmark's vision for the future of retail — one that is social, online and secondhand. The company's stock price more than doubled within a few minutes of its Nasdaq debut this morning, rising from $42 to $103.
Poshmark is anything but an overnight success. The California-based company, founded in 2011, has steadily attracted a community of 31.7 million active users to its marketplace for secondhand apparel, accessories, footwear, home and beauty products. In 2019, these users spent an average of 27 minutes per day on the platform, placing it in the same realm as some of the most popular social media services. This is likely why Poshmark points out in its S-1 that it isn't just an ecommerce platform, but a "social marketplace." Users can like, comment, share and follow other buyers and sellers on the platform.
The fintech startup's stock soared more than 90% in its IPO debut today.
Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.
It was a blockbuster debut for Affirm. The fintech startup's shares soared more than 90% when it went public on Wednesday.
The day itself began quietly for CEO Max Levchin: He kicked it off with a Zoom call with his kids, made a latte for his wife and joined a group chat with some high school friends, one of whom is recovering from COVID-19. "We were very happy to hear that he's doing well," he told Protocol shortly after his startup began trading on the Nasdaq Global Exchange.
Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.