Our 2016 Predictions For The IPO Market

2015 was not a good year for IPOs — it was actually the worst year for tech IPOs since the financial crisis in 2009. More and more startups are opting to remain private for longer periods of time.

And while we still haven’t seen any IPOs in 2016, the slowest start since 2009, eventually venture-backed companies need to go public — if only to raise additional financing to continue operating. We’re starting to hear murmurs about late-stage financing drying up.

“The ease of capital at lofty valuations in the private markets is starting to tighten up,” said Shriram Bhashyam, co-founder at EquityZen. “Funding terms are getting more onerous, with more protective provisions in place for investors.”

Now many startups are bringing in banks like Credit Suisse — which often run IPOs — to run their financing rounds.

Garvis Toler, Global Head of Capital Markets at the New York Stock Exchange tells TechCrunch that he is “quite optimistic about 2016,” particularly because “lots of enterprise companies are showing a lot of interest in the public market.”

So, let’s take a rundown of some companies that are both household names, or otherwise unknowns, that could go public this year, according to what we’re hearing from our sources.