Top Secret Palantir Technologies Valued at $9Bil Considers Alternative to IPO

Posted on June 1, 2014June 1, 2014 by admin

Extracts published at Brokerdealer.com are courtesy of NY Times May 31 story by Quentin Hardy

Palantir Technologies will not help you share, message, pin, post or chat. It does not exist to make you more social or connected, or even to help advertisers get to you. Its technology is deeply geeky, its work secretive. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most valuable private tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Palantir Technologies, which has 1,500 employees, has government and private clients worldwide. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

This year, Palantir, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., is expected to bring in about $1 billion in revenue, mostly from private companies interested in adaptations of its intelligence software. Though it is not yet profitable, investors have given Palantir almost $900 million in total. The most recent round, last December, sold shares in the company to investors at an implied valuation for the company of $9 billion.

All of this has its investors, including some of the world’s most successful hedge funds, salivating for a big payday from an initial public offering. “The company has been incredibly successful, and every investor likes when companies go public,” Justin Fishner-Wolfson, a managing partner at 137 Ventures, which is one of those investors, said in an email.

Instead of selling stock to the public, founder and co-CEO Alex Karp and other executives are toying with the idea of creating new kinds of financial instruments, like a bond that pays off on future earnings, to unlock a bit of Palantir’s value.

For the full story from the NY Times, please click here

BrokerDealer.com IPO Spotlight: MobileIron Raises IPO target to $128M; Arista Ups Ante: Offering to Raise $241M

Posted on May 30, 2014 by admin

Courtesy of Silicon Valley Business Journal and Cromwell Schubarth

MobileIron, the mobile device management software company, on Thursday gave new hope to those worried that the IPO boom of the past year had run out of steam.

The Mountain View company, led by CEO Bob Tinker, said it plans to raise up to $128 million when it sells 11.11 million shares to the public alongside another allotment to insiders.

That’s above the $100 million placeholder fundraising target MobileIron announced at the beginning of April when it made its first public disclosure of its plans.

Raising price targets from that initial filing number, which is only disclosed for tax and fee purposes, isn’t a big deal in normal times. Nearly all of the IPOs during the recent streak did that. Some raised their targets more than once before their Wall Street debuts.

But that hadn’t been the case in the past two months, when investors started pushing back on companies that were all revenue growth and that had no profit in sight.

The chill on Wall Street prompted MobileIron, Arista Networks and Box all to postpone IPOs that had been expected before Memorial Day.

Now Arista and MobileIron have jumped back into line, both raising their top target numbers.

Santa Clara-based Arista on Monday said it expects to raise up to $241.5 million, above the $200 million top target that it projected in late March when it first officially disclosed its plans to go public. But it was also unusual among some startups in the fact that it has been profitable in the three years leading up to its impending stock offering.

For the full article, please click here

Is Your Startup Really Ready to Go Public? Uh Oh or IPO…Expert Insight

Posted on May 30, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog provides this excerpt courtesy of article contributed to Entrepreneur Magazine by Martin Zwilling, CEO Startup Professionals

With the recent apparent successes of several startups in taking their company public (initial public offering) and raising billions of dollars, I’m hearing a groundswell of enthusiasm from new entrepreneurs to follow in their footsteps to fund their companies and become billionaires overnight.

“If Facebook, Yelp and Twitter can do it, then why not me?”

Current IPO activity feedback seems to support their excitement. In the first quarter of 2014, the U.S. IPO market showed more activity than any other first quarter since 2000, with 64 companies raising $10.6 billion. That is more than double the number of IPOs in the first quarter of 2013. With 103 new filings during the quarter, the rest of 2014 is on track to keep up this record pace.

On the other side of the coin, new entrepreneurs seem to forget that 64 startups is a miniscule percentage of the companies seeking funding during the first quarter. According to the Small Business Administration, about 600,000 new businesses are started in the U.S. each year, and a large percentage are always looking for money.

What should an entrepreneur look for in his own startup as a reality check on his own aspirations to be a serious IPO candidate? Here is my collection of the key considerations, based on my own experience, scanning the literature and talking to experts in this domain: Continue reading →

Euronext Exchange to go Go Public via IPO

Posted on May 27, 2014 by admin

BrokerDealer.com provides below news courtesy of AP Wire Services and Washington Post

Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange Group (ICE) said Tuesday it is launching an initial public offering (IPO) of ordinary shares in Euronext NV. The pan-European company operates exchanges in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon.

For the full story, please visit the Washington Post

China’s JD.com Soars 20% on US IPO

Posted on May 22, 2014 by admin

May 22 (Reuters) – Shares of Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com Inc soared almost 20 percent in their U.S. market debut as investors sought a piece of the country’s booming online retail market, auguring well for Alibaba Group Holding Inc’s hotly anticipated mega-float later this year.

JD.com, China’s largest e-commerce company after larger rival Alibaba, was briefly valued at more than $30 billion before the stock pared its gains. By midday, the stock was up about 8 percent at $20.50, versus its $19 initial public offering price.