Although this past year was wildly positive for the broad markets, initial public offerings (IPOs) were one of the few segments that 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 now underway, a new batch of companies are planning to come public, hopefully with more success than last year.

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 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. Note that 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 called 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.

Robinhood

Robinhood is an online brokerage service that primarily operates through its app. Although this company has only been making news in the past couple of years, it has been around since 2013. This online broker was one of the first to adopt a zero-fee trade policy for its customers, and only recently have the bigger online brokerage firms followed suit.

Over the summer, Robinhood received more financing for its business putting its valuation between $7 billion and $8 billion.

This startup has seen incredible growth over the past couple of years. In the summer of 2018, Robinhood had roughly 4 million users. This number was said to have jumped to 6 million by the end of the year. Currently, Robinhood has over 10 million users, according to Forbes.

While the company has not yet filed with the SEC to come public, Robinhood has been the talk of Wall Street for what the future could hold, especially in terms of getting more millennials into the market. One big question now is how it will differentiate itself in a world where all the top online trading platforms have also capitulated and gone into zero-commission trading.

Postmates

Postmates has risen to popularity as the gig economy has taken off. If Uber and Lyft are glorified taxi services, Postmates is the delivery service equivalent — without the massive valuation. Postmates was launched in 2011 and offers an on-demand delivery service for restaurants and stores that previously did not offer deliveries. Postmates valuation is estimated to be roughly $2.4 billion as of September.

This company was expected to come public in 2019 when it confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC in February. The S-1 was expected to come later in the year (many reports suggested September) but this never came about. CEO Bastian Lehmann has cited “choppy” market conditions, especially for growth-focused companies, as a rationale for not bringing the company public yet.

One concern for this company is the e-commerce Death Star, Amazon, which has taken the delivery service industry by storm. Big names like FedEx have felt the sting. Even though Postmates is fighting this battle on a more local level, it’s hard to believe that this firm won’t be affected in some way. On the other hand, Postmates is also experimenting with drone and robot delivery in Los Angeles, San Francisco and maybe soon New York.

Casper might not be a household name but it could prove to be a dark horse IPO in 2020. Companies that sell mattresses may not be exciting, but Casper is one of the first to break into e-commerce, easily differentiating itself from the field in a market that could double within the next five years.

This company has also taken the offensive on social media, enlisting celebrities as hired guns to push their mattresses. Influencers like Kylie Jenner, 50 Cent and even Leonardo DiCaprio are on the payroll, and it seems to be paying off.

Earlier this year, the company had its financials leaked online. According to the leak, Casper projected revenue for 2018 of $373 million with more than $100 million in the third quarter alone, a 49% year over year increase.

After a round of funding in March, analysts are estimating Casper’s valuation at just over $1 billion.

Ant Financial

Executives at Ant Financial have said that there are no immediate plans to go public and no timetable, but there is still much speculation. Ant Financial operates the massive Alipay service that handles financial transactions on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms. Also, it can be used as a digital payment option in stores and restaurants. Other Ant Financial products include a private credit platform, as well as consumer and small and medium-sized enterprise lending businesses.

Working as part of the Alibaba machine would already net it a huge valuation, but some think that it could be as high as $150 billion.

Probably the biggest draw of this company is its mobile payments platform that operates within China. Right now it seems unrealistic that any U.S. company could break into mobile payments in China, but this company would offer a vehicle for that type of investment, which makes it so enticing to U.S. investors.

Didi Chuxing

Didi Chuxing is another Chinese company to watch out for in 2020. Didi operates as a ride-hailing service, and many are calling it the “Uber of China.” In fact, Didi acquired Uber’s China business in 2016 for $35 billion. The company was originally founded in 2012.

The company had planned to come public in 2019, with a valuation around $80 billion, taking a backseat to Uber’s $120 billion valuation. However, Chinese Uber did not pull the trigger. Didi waiting to come public could weigh on the valuation, as Uber and Lyft valuations have suffered since they came public, causing investors to rethink if ride-hailing firms are overvalued in general.

Didi is not without competition for China. The two key players that it is up against are Auto Navi (owned by Alibaba) and local player Meituan Dianping. Both players are offering deep discounts in order to gain market share, and their local expertise could potentially impact Didi’s market share in the country.

Snowflake

Snowflake operates as a data warehousing cloud service provider, founded in 2012. The company has enjoyed continued growth over the last year. Revenues were up 237%, employee count doubled to 1,400 and Snowflake quadrupled the number of new customers bringing its total to about 2,400.

The company also won the business of credit card giant Capital One. Despite major players like Amazon and Microsoft in the field, Capital One chose Snowflake, and so far the partnership appears to be working out. Snowflake has attracted some other big names as well, and CEO Frank Slootman says the company is taking more business from the major players in the cloud.

The most recent valuation for Snowflake comes from October 2018 when the company raised $450 million, valuing the company at $3.95 billion.

WeWork

WeWork, which was one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2019, formally filed a request to withdraw its registration statement on the S-1 form that was initially filed with SEC. In simpler terms, WeWork no longer plans at coming public, at least for now. There is still some speculation that the company may come public later in 2020 or make more plans known, but this may just be wishful thinking.

Bad press has plagued this company, as analysts slashed its valuation over the course of this year. There’s even speculation that WeWork could run out of money. This company rents out co-working spaces to startups, freelancers and enterprises in some of the most expensive markets and seeks to make money back over time as companies and individuals pay their rent or membership.

WeWork was founded early 2010, and over the past nine years it has rapidly scaled its business. In recent filings with the SEC, the company boasted 528 locations in 111 cities across 29 countries. The 527,000 memberships represent global enterprises across multiple industries, including 38% of the Global Fortune 500.

Near the onset of IPO talks for this company, a brokerage house valued WeWork at roughly $100 billion. By the time the IPO was shelved, some estimates valued the firm at $10 billion. Some analysts are even calling this a classic example of the “greater fool theory.” As far as why this remains on an IPO list: the public markets may be the last bastion of financing ahead, meaning it may be the company’s only choice, regardless of its underlying troubles.

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