There will be more tech companies going public in 2017 than this year.
That’s the takeaway from CB Insights’ fifth annual Tech IPO Pipeline Report, which looks at the top 369 U.S. companies that are poised for an IPO in the coming year.
There have been only 14 tech IPOs thus far in 2016 — down from 28 in 2015 and 62 in 2014 — and CB Insights expects that number to increase in 2017.
“2016 did not turn out to see a flurry of tech IPOs as companies continued to access funding privately,” the report noted. “But as companies in the pipeline continue to mature, increased calls by investors for companies to go public, and a slowing down of deep pocketed investors like mutual funds and hedge funds financing late-stage startups, the drumbeat for a busier 2017 IPO pipeline is getting louder.”
Using its rating system Mosaic, which analyzes data to rank organizations based on overall health and growth potential, CBInsights came up with the top five companies that are most likely to go public in 2017: Qualtrics, Blue Apron, Zuora, Okta, and Pluralsight.
A majority of the pipeline companies (269, or 73 percent) are categorized as “Internet,” with “mobile and telecommunications” (39), “non-internet or mobile software” (33), and “computer hardware and services” (17) following. Within the “Internet” category, “business intelligence, analytics, and performance management” ranked highest, followed by “monitoring and security,” “accounting and finance,” “HR and workforce management,” and “customer relationship management.”
Based on region, California has the most pipeline companies with 207, or 56 percent. Washington, which saw just three companies (Apptio, Impinj, PhaseRx) go public in 2016, ranked seventh with seven companies. Update: the seven companies from Washington are Avalara, Rover, PayScale, Redfin, OfferUp, Avvo, and Inrix.
The pipeline companies have raised, on average, $262 million to date. That’s up from $182 million last year.
Andreessen Horowitz had the most portfolio companies (17) on the list, followed by SV Angel and Sequoia Capital.
Of the 369 companies, 86 are categorized as “unicorns,” or those with a valuation of $1 billion or more. That’s up from 80 last year. The “unicorn list” includes companies like Domo; Stripe; Uber; Airbnb; Unity; Instacart; and others.
IPO pipeline companies with new $1 billion valuations this year dropped by 70 percent compared to 2015.
Check out the full report here.
