IPOS Are Having a Record-Breaking Year

A RECORD-BREAKING YEAR FOR IPOS

AngelList Weekly, November 15, 2018

2019 is shaping up to be a breakout year for tech IPOs.

The economy is strong, unemployment rates are low, and investor optimism is high with rising tech valuations. Airbnb, Slack, and Lyft could all go public within the next year, and despite its slowing growth, Uber is among the most anticipated offerings in years.

The ride-sharing company's latest valuation sits just over $70 billion, but recent estimates could have it pegged at upwards of $100 billion. Even though Uber announced $1.07 billion in third-quarter losses Wednesday, it still has the potential to be the biggest IPO in history. Alibaba currently holds that title for its $25 billion offering in 2014, but at a rumored valuation of $120 billion, Uber would only need to offer a fraction of its shares to take the crown.

For comparison, Uber’s possible $120 billion valuation would be roughly four times Airbnb’s current $31 billion, eight times Lyft’s $15 billion, and over 17 times Slack’s $7 billion.

The numbers are staggering in their own right, but their potential is even more impressive when you consider activity from earlier this year. In the first quarter of 2018, "the median IPO size for U.S., VC-backed companies was $110 million," according to a Pitchbook analysis.

By the end of September, 173 U.S. IPOs had raised just over $45 billion, according to data from PwC. That's almost a 50% increase compared to the same period in 2017. And while 2018 has seen the strongest IPO activity since 2014, if the tech giants currently expected to go public in 2019 follow through, we’ll have a front-row seat to record-breaking activity.

As Bloomberg aptly described it: "The last time three 11-figure U.S. tech companies went public in the same year, Bill Clinton was president and Apple Inc. was worth less than 1% of Microsoft Corp. That was 2000, when, with air leaking out of the dot-com bubble, the company that made the Palm Pilot was valued at $21 billion."

Source:  https://angel.co/newsletters/a-record-breaking-year-for-ipos-111518

Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) Sale Nets $8.86 Million for Ethereum Scaling

Multicoin Leads $10 Million SAFT Sale for Ethereum Scaling Startup Skale

From Coindesk.com by Nikhilesh De Oct. 4, 2018

Blockchain startup Skale Labs raised nearly $10 million in an effort to develop a blockchain scalability infrastructure for ethereum, the company announced Thursday.

The startup says in a press statement that it raised $8.86 million in a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) sale led by Multicoin Capital, on top of $785,000 raised earlier this year.

Galaxy Digital, Aspect Ventures, Blockchange Ventures, Boost.VC, Canaan Venture Partners, Floodgate Fund, Hack.VC, Neo Global Capital and Signia Venture Partners also participated in the sale.

The company intends to launch an open-source permissionless blockchain targeted toward providing ethereum-based decentralized application (dapp) developers a new base platform to build upon.

In particular, Skale intends to launch the first implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine on a Plasma chain – a move it says would help dapp developers by giving them a layer-2 platform on which to execute smart contracts.

Using Skale's network will enable dapps to conduct "millions of transactions per second at a fraction of the cost of what's possible today," the release claims.

Jack O'Holleran, co-founder and CEO of Skale Labs, said in a statement that "helping Ethereum dapp developers scale applications is the center of what we do."

He added:

"We are sharply focused on making Layer 2 easy, fast, secure and cost-effective for anyone who wants to run smart contracts on Ethereum ... We are looking forward to bringing this network to market in a fully open-source, [peer-to-peer] manner."

The startup plans to set its testnet live by the end of 2018 and activate its mainnet in the upcoming year. A foundation will also be launched to support the network, similar to the Ethereum Foundation and its work supporting the Ethereum mainnet, the firm says.

"Skale is uniquely positioned to dominate Layer 2 on Ethereum," said Multicoin Capital managing partner Kyle Samani, adding that the project is "Ethereum's best shot at fending off competition from other smart contract platforms."

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