In 2000, most companies like this turned out to be actual mythical unicorns. Only a few became horses, i,e, real animals. It will be interesting to see what real:mythical ratio this financing round will have.
One big difference from 2000 is that a lot of these companies have actual businesses and growing revenues — they aren’t just being measured on “eyeballs” or other dubious metrics that were popular then. Several of the “enterprise focused” companies will do well, I think — Nutanix, Apttus, Coupa, Stripe, Zenefits. Others that are more focused on consumers might do pretty well, but the valuations may be a stretch — Warby Parker, Prosper.
Theranos — looks like that one is heading to the bottom of the bowl.
Docusign feels like a feature to me, not a company. There are still quite a few that look like Amazon/Google et al could put out of business. Zomato — what the heck is that? A restaurant finder? Instacart? Andreesen Horowitz invested in Instacart, and those folks are all super smart, but I don’t get that one — except as possibly an acquisition target for AMZN or GOOG.
Watch out for Shazam — I don’t really understand how they’re going to make money, but they seem to be some smart mofos ;-)
Jan 2014 seems to be a good dividing line. I recognize most of the companies on the left and almost none on the right. Even without knowing anything, I’d bet that in five years 10% of the companies on the right will either be out of business or, if public, not worth their current valuation.
In 2000, most companies like this turned out to be actual mythical unicorns. Only a few became horses, i,e, real animals. It will be interesting to see what real:mythical ratio this financing round will have.
I think this means that the next tech crash won’t involve the general public, just the genius ‘insiders’.
One big difference from 2000 is that a lot of these companies have actual businesses and growing revenues — they aren’t just being measured on “eyeballs” or other dubious metrics that were popular then. Several of the “enterprise focused” companies will do well, I think — Nutanix, Apttus, Coupa, Stripe, Zenefits. Others that are more focused on consumers might do pretty well, but the valuations may be a stretch — Warby Parker, Prosper.
Theranos — looks like that one is heading to the bottom of the bowl.
Docusign feels like a feature to me, not a company. There are still quite a few that look like Amazon/Google et al could put out of business. Zomato — what the heck is that? A restaurant finder? Instacart? Andreesen Horowitz invested in Instacart, and those folks are all super smart, but I don’t get that one — except as possibly an acquisition target for AMZN or GOOG.
Watch out for Shazam — I don’t really understand how they’re going to make money, but they seem to be some smart mofos ;-)
Jan 2014 seems to be a good dividing line. I recognize most of the companies on the left and almost none on the right. Even without knowing anything, I’d bet that in five years 10% of the companies on the right will either be out of business or, if public, not worth their current valuation.