KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 19): Valuations of the largest startup offerings of 2021 are down 60% from their initial level. But as a group, post-debut performance has been quite mixed.
In a report on Wednesday, Crunchbase, which tracks trends, investments and news of global companies from startups to the Fortune 1000, said on the positive side, Samsara, an Internet of Things data platform provider, stands out as a star performer.
The firm said Samsara’s shares are actually worth more today than they were when the company went public in December 2021.
Crunchbase said in normal times, going public at a valuation of over US$10 billion (RM47.4 billion) is both a rare occurrence and a very big deal.
The firm said that in 2021, however, such enormous IPOs became rather common, even for money-losing startups.
More than 20 global companies made their debut on the Nasdaq and NYSE that year at initial valuations above US$10 billion.
The list included some of the buzziest names in tech and the app economy: ride-hailing platform Didi, EV maker Rivian, Southeast Asian superapp Grab, and crypto platform Coinbase.
Cruncbase said in terms of billions in market cap loss, Didi stands out for having shed US$56.5 billion from its public valuation.
It said the company also delisted from the NYSE last year. Rivian is a not-too-distant second, having given up US$48.1 billion in market cap since its November 2021 IPO.
As for percentage declines, the worst on its list is health insurer Bright Health Group, which has shed more than 99% of its value since its June 2021 IPO.
Tuya, a China-based IoT technology platform that co-listed in Hong Kong, has also performed poorly, with shares down over 92% from the day of its IPO launch.
Crunchbase said the poor aftermarket performance of the class of 2021 IPOs may be one factor that’s prevented it from seeing a resurgence in new startup debuts.
Even though the big IPOs of recent months — including Arm Holdings, Instacart and Klaviyo — involved profitable companies at post-bubble valuations, investor appetite remains muted. Currently, all three are trading well below their peak first-day prices.
Meanwhile, there remains a considerable backlog of still-private unicorns contemplating a market debut should conditions improve.
Perhaps if some of these boom-era offerings recover, that’d go a long way toward reopening the window, it said.