Although 2019 was wildly positive for the broad markets in 2019, the market for many of the top initial public offerings (IPOs) lagged. Uber, Lyft and some other big names fell flat and largely contributed to this underperformance, but a few small firms had spectacular gains. With 2020 on the way, a new batch of companies are planning to come public.
Some of these companies already have formally filed their S-1 and equivalent forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other companies have filed confidential data with the SEC for IPOs, and other so-called unicorn companies, those with private market valuations north of $1 billion, are all highly speculated to come public.
Stock market investors actually want to see more IPOs. There has been widespread criticism that many companies are waiting too long to come public. Some investors have bought into these companies on secondary private company exchanges as insiders, and prior backers have sold shares here and there.
24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of companies likely be on the IPO docket for 2020. Note that some of these companies have been on that IPO docket, or at least were believed to be, for a while now. Companies such as Airbnb, WeWork, Postmates and Robinhood are all on the list here. There are also other companies, some of which are widely anticipated to come public, that may be unheard of or not very well known to the investing community. For the record, this is a preliminary list, and some data may change in a moment’s notice that would take any of them off the IPO docket.
Here are nine highly anticipated IPOs to watch for in 2020.
Airbnb
Airbnb has competed against the hotel industry and other home rental services for years now, and some investors have been calling for it to have an IPO, long before 2020. The company was founded back in 2008. Still, inside turnover and lawsuits have created some uncertainty for a company that reportedly was valued at $31 billion after a $1 billion capital raise in 2017.
During the second quarter, the company said it had “substantially more than $1 billion” in revenue from more than 7 million listings on its service in more than 100,000 cities worldwide. It also has expanded with experiences and boutique hotels, and it has its “most wishlisted homes” that can be rented around the world.
Airbnb also debuted a new luxury service called Luxe in June with more than 2,000 high-end rentals. The service is expected to compete with Marriot’s luxury home-rental service, Homes & Villas.
Palantir
Palantir Technologies is a top private data analytics and data mining outfit that caters to government clients. The company has been around for more than a decade and was founded by Peter Thiel back in 2003.
The company was valued at roughly $20 billion in a private fundraising round in 2015. Now in a recent fundraising round in September, the company was said to be targeting a valuation of at least $26 billion.
The company is known for being secretive, so who really knows what the valuation will be. We will have to just wait and see if 2020 is the year that the company is more open to the public.
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