Fred and his ilk enjoy to deposit companies that lose grotesque amounts of money, trading for 30x sales, on the public markets. The reason why the VCs do this is the same reason why you and I trade the stock market: for money. Like a boiler room stocked broker or a manager of an elaborate ponzi scheme, for the most part, the venture capital business is one giant scheme.
With that being said, here is the scheme leaderboard, the Crunchbase Unicorn Leaderboard of fuckery list. The grande total valuation is a touch over $524 billion, with over $77 billion raised.
Here they are, the mothefuckers that are gonna IPO through Morgan and Goldman at high as fuck valuations. You’re gonna get a hard on to buy them, due to all of the publicity. Then you’ll buy some in the after market, because you’re too much of a piker to get an allocation, and you’re gonna get Zynga’d. Your whole face is gonna get blown off in one of these things. They’re like dynamite sticks inside of a hornet’s nest, disguised as a harem with chocolate cake and lots of free money.
Fuck the unicorns.
(valuations over $2.5b)
Company
Post Money Value
Valuation Change
Total Equity Funding
Known Lead Investors
Country
Market
Uber
TechCrunch Coverage
$51B
Sep 2015 +24% $6.6B
First Round (Angel)
Benchmark (Series A)
Menlo Ventures (Series B)
Google Ventures (Series C)
Fidelity Investments (Series D)
Baidu (Private Equity)
USA Consumer Internet
Xiaomi
TechCrunch Coverage
$45B
Apr 2015 – $1.1B
IDG Capital Partners (Series A)
Morningside Group (Series A)
Morningside Group (Series B)
Morningside Group (Series C)
Ratan Tata ()
CHN Hardware
Airbnb
TechCrunch Coverage
$25.5B
Jun 2015 +143% $2.3B
Sequoia Capital (Seed)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
General Atlantic (Private Equity)
Hillhouse Capital Group (Private Equity)
Tiger Global Management (Private Equity)
USA Consumer Internet
Palantir Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$20B
Jul 2015 +6% $1.6B
Founders Fund (Series D)
USA Software
Didi Kuaidi
TechCrunch Coverage
$17.4B
Sep 2015 – $4.4B
GSR Ventures (Series A)
Tencent Industry Win-Win Fund (Series B)
Temasek Holdings (Series D)
SoftBank (Venture)
CHN Consumer Internet
Snapchat
TechCrunch Coverage
$15.34B
May 2015 +45% $1.19B
Lightspeed Venture Partners (Seed)
Benchmark (Series A)
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) (Series B)
Coatue Management (Series C)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series D)
Alibaba (Series E)
USA Consumer Internet
Flipkart
TechCrunch Coverage
$15B
Jul 2015 +34% $3.2B
Accel (Series A)
Tiger Global Management (Series C)
Naspers (Series D)
DST Global (Series F)
Tiger Global Management (Series G)
Naspers (Series G)
IND E-Commerce
Space Exploration Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$12B
Jan 2015 – $1.25B
Founders Fund (Series A)
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) (Series D)
USA Aerospace and Defense
Pinterest
TechCrunch Coverage
$11.2B
May 2015 +113% $1.32B
Bessemer Venture Partners (Series A)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series B)
Rakuten (Series C)
Valiant Capital Partners (Series D)
Fidelity Investments (Series E)
SV Angel (Series F)
USA Consumer Internet
Dropbox
TechCrunch Coverage
$10.35B
Jan 2014 +144% $600M
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Index Ventures (Series B)
BlackRock (Series C)
USA Software
WeWork
TechCrunch Coverage
$10B
Jun 2015 +100% $1B
Goldman Sachs (Series D)
T. Rowe Price (Series D)
Wellington Management (Series D)
USA Real Estate
Lufax
$9.69B
Apr 2015 – $485M
BlackPine Private Equity Partners (Venture)
CHN Financial Services
Theranos
TechCrunch Coverage
$9B
Jun 2014 – $92M – USA Healthcare
Spotify
TechCrunch Coverage
$8.53B
Jun 2015 – $1.06B
Founders Fund (Series C)
Goldman Sachs (Series E)
Technology Crossover Ventures (Series F)
SWE Consumer Internet
ZhongAn
$8B
Jun 2015 – $931M – CHN Financial Services
DJI
TechCrunch Coverage
$8B
May 2015 +391% $105M
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Accel (Series B)
CHN Hardware
Meituan.com
TechCrunch Coverage
$7B
Jan 2015 – $1.07B
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
Alibaba (Series B)
General Atlantic (Series C)
CHN E-Commerce
Square
TechCrunch Coverage
$6B
Apr 2015 +74% $591M
Sequoia Capital (Series B)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series C)
GIC (Series E)
USA Financial Services
Ola
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Sep 2015 +107% $902M
Tiger Global Management (Series A)
Sequoia Capital (Series C)
Steadview Capital (Series C)
SoftBank Capital (Series D)
DST Global (Series E)
Falcon Edge Capital (Series F)
IND Consumer Internet
Coupang
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Jun 2015 +100% $1.4B
Sequoia Capital (Venture)
BlackRock Private Equity Partners (Private Equity)
SoftBank (Private Equity)
KOR E-Commerce
Stem CentRx
$5B
Sep 2015 – $474M
Fidelity Investments (Series G)
USA Healthcare
Stripe
TechCrunch Coverage
$5B
Jul 2015 – $190M
Y Combinator (Seed)
Sequoia Capital (Series A)
General Catalyst Partners (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
Thrive Capital (Series C)
USA Financial Services
Snapdeal
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.8B
Aug 2015 +83% $1.6B
Nexus Venture Partners (Series A)
Kalaari Capital (Series A)
Bessemer Venture Partners (Series B)
eBay (Series C)
Recruit Holdings (Series C)
SoftBank Capital (Venture)
eBay (Series D)
Ratan Tata (Venture)
SoftBank Internet and Media (SIMI) (Private Equity)
Foxconn Technology Group (Private Equity)
SoftBank (Private Equity)
Alibaba (Private Equity)
IND E-Commerce
Zenefits
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.5B
May 2015 – $584M
Maverick Capital (Seed)
Venrock (Seed)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series A)
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) (Series B)
Fidelity Investments (Series C)
TPG (Series C)
USA Software
Cloudera
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.1B
Sep 2014 – $1.04B
Accel (Series A)
Meritech Capital Partners (Series C)
Ignition Partners (Series D)
Accel (Series E)
T. Rowe Price (Series F)
USA Software
Dianping
TechCrunch Coverage
$4.05B
Mar 2015 – $1.04B – CHN Consumer Internet
Credit Karma
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.5B
Jun 2015 +250% $368M
QED Investors (Series A)
Susquehanna Growth Equity (Series B)
Ribbit Capital (Series B)
Google Capital (Series C)
USA Financial Services
Global Fashion Group
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.45B
Jul 2015 +12% $167M
Rocket Internet (Venture)
Investment AB Kinnevik (Venture)
LUX E-Commerce
Atlassian
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.3B
Apr 2014 – $210M
Accel (Secondary Market)
T. Rowe Price (Secondary Market)
AUS Software
Meizu
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.3B
Feb 2015 – $890M
Alibaba (Private Equity)
CHN Hardware
Fanatics
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.17B
Aug 2015 – $395M
Insight Venture Partners (Private Equity)
Silver Lake Partners (Private Equity)
USA E-Commerce
Delivery Hero
TechCrunch Coverage
$3.11B
Jun 2015 +41% $1.39B
Kite Ventures (Series C)
Kite Ventures (Series D)
Phenomen Ventures (Series D)
Insight Venture Partners (Series E)
Luxor Capital Group (Series F)
Insight Venture Partners (Series G)
Kite Ventures (Series G)
Rocket Internet (Venture)
DEU Consumer Internet
Legendary Entertainment
$3B
Oct 2014 – $1.01B
SoftBank Capital (Private Equity)
USA Entertainment
SoFi
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Sep 2015 – $1.42B
Baseline Ventures (Series B)
Discovery Capital (Series C)
Third Point Ventures (Series D)
SoftBank (Series E)
USA Financial Services
VANCL
$3B
Feb 2014 – $570M
Lei Jun (Venture)
CHN E-Commerce
Jawbone
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Apr 2015 +0% $726M
BlackRock (Private Equity)
USA Hardware
Wish
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Jun 2015 – $579M
Formation 8 (Series B)
GGV Capital (Series B)
Founders Fund (Series C)
USA E-Commerce
Ele.me
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Aug 2015 – $1.1B
Sequoia Capital (Series C)
Tencent Holdings (Series E)
Hualian (Series F)
CITIC Capital Holdings (Series F)
CHN Consumer Internet
HelloFresh
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
Sep 2015 – $278.5M
Phenomen Ventures (Series C)
Insight Venture Partners (Series D)
Rocket Internet (Series E)
Baillie Gifford (Series F)
DEU Consumer Internet
DocuSign
TechCrunch Coverage
$3B
May 2015 – $508M
Scale Venture Partners (Series C)
Brookside Capital (Series F)
Bain Capital Ventures (Series F)
USA Software
Moderna Therapeutics
$2.95B
Jan 2015 – $675M
Flagship Ventures (Venture)
Alexion Pharmaceuticals (Venture)
USA Healthcare
Bloom Energy
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.83B
Jan 2015 -1% $1.11B – USA Energy
Slack
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.8B
Apr 2015 +126% $340M
SV Angel (Seed)
Accel (Series A)
Social Capital (Series C)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Series D)
Google Ventures (Series D)
Social Capital (Series E)
USA Software
Powa Technologies
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.78B
Nov 2014 – $177M
Wellington Management (Series A)
Wellington Management (Series C)
GBR Financial Services
Vice Media
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.55B
Sep 2014 – $570M – USA Consumer Internet
Lyft
TechCrunch Coverage
$2.5B
May 2015 +12% $1.01B
fbFund (Seed)
K9 Ventures (Seed)
FLOODGATE (Seed)
Mayfield Fund (Series A)
Founders Fund (Series B)
Andreessen Horowitz (Series C)
Coatue Management (Series D)
Rakuten (Series E)
Icahn Enterprises (Series E)
USA Consumer Internet
You expect a mild pullback when some of the bigger unicorns go public, like what happened after Alibaba IPOd?
i have no idea
Christ. The “lead” investors read like dark ages nobility. Earls and dukes with princes and kings. Karl Marx was right all along. No wonder Granny will never raise rates. These pig fucking unicorns could never fly if money was not free. In the immortal words of the Bern. Wall Streets business model is fraud. Fucking socialist.
Bern is a bit old to still be having much sex, but if he is, good for him.
Bernie is getting more & more popular & raising more & more money. A lot of people are thinking socialist is not such a bad word after all. Nor is the phrase regulated capitalism so bad. When you let the “free market” decide everything, to the point where humongous fraud is legal– or, if illegal, the fines charged for fruad are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the winnings of the fraudsters– this is not so great.
“Sharing economy” is the new “BRICs”. Trade accordingly.
Who let a interior decorator into this site?
Oh jeeeez, where have I seen this before?
IPO means I’m Peed On. I think that’s trickle down economics” there.
So…buy SoftBank and Alibaba instead?