For a startup to earn the moniker "unicorn"— attaining a valuation of $1 billion as a private company—was once a vaunted status. Just a decade ago, only 80 companies had joined the club. Then came the boom of the zero-interest rate era, pushing the number above 1,200 by the beginning of 2024. But the venture capitalists who backed them have a burning question: Will they ever achieve an exit?
The so-called "age of the unicorns" has given way to a freezing of public markets, which Fortune deemed the "age of the unicorpses" in a cover story in January. With interest rates rising and government regulators striking down acquisitions, all of the companies that were able to rake in billions in funding have now found themselves struggling to achieve a successful outcome, with many folding against a less forgiving financial landscape.
At Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference on Tuesday, a panel of top investors from firms including Google's independent growth fund CapitalG and the multi-billion-dollar firm Norwest discussed how they are coping with the new reality and whether IPO markets will open back up within the next couple of years. The conclusions were mixed, with most agreeing that the heady days of 2021 created unrealistic—and irresponsible—expectations for startups. "We’re not here to time the market," said Renata Quintini, the cofounder and managing director of Renegade Partners.
To IPO or not to IPO
While 2021 saw a blazing market for public offerings, the number shrunk as interest rates rose and investors turned to safer bets like treasuries. As a result, the once reliable exit strategy for tech companies of an IPO evaporated as an option.
Jill Greenberg Chase, a partner at CapitalG, said that conditions seemed to be thawing thanks to the success of recent tech IPOs, including Reddit and Rubric, whose stocks have remained above their initial price. "We need more of those," she said. "Until we see more datapoints, we won’t see an IPO market until the beginning of 2025."
Even that could be too rosy a timeline. Jai Das, the cofounder and president of Sapphire Ventures, said that he doesn't think the worst is over, with companies still overloaded with cash from the venture craze of 2021 and 2022 but not generating the numbers needed to attract more cautious investors in public markets. Instead, he predicted that tech companies will continue to turn to private equity firms, who traditionally will pay much lower multiples than venture firms chase.
Another exit strategy—mergers and acquisitions—has also closed up due to a more stringent approach from regulators. Both the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have provided more scrutiny to proposed mega-deals, including Adobe's planned $20 billion takeover of the design software maker Figma, which it abandoned in late 2023. "It definitely stifles innovation," said Quintini.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google was in late-stage discussions to acquire the cybersecurity firm Wiz for $23 billion. If successful, the deal could signal a return of the M&A market, although the panelists on Tuesday expressed cautious optimism.
Despite the tighter landscape, the VCs agreed that a more realistic approach to the expectations of portfolio companies could lead to a healthier tech ecosystem, especially after firms threw massive sums of money at startups without clear paths to sustainable revenue before the market collapsed. "Naturally, there's going to be a hangover," said Lisa Wu, a partner at Norwest.
The only exception is AI, with top companies still commanding 2021-sized valuations. Without a clear understanding of what the total addressable market, or TAM, of AI products could be, Chase said that she turns to "what you need to believe math," or trying to understand the underlying metrics of companies and how they might grow to justify funding rounds. "There's so much potential for so much of this technology," she said. "It's a completely different paradigm for how we're thinking about market size."
Of course, the AI market is evolving rapidly, both in terms of the capability of the technology as well as the needs of the customers, said Matt McIlwain, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group. The startups that build on top of these AI capabilities and deliver real value to customers will be positioned for next phase of the AI era, he said.
A lot of attention right now is focused on large language models like OpenAI's GPT an Google's Gemini McIlwain said, but the most important AI model "is the business model."
Read more coverage from Brainstorm Tech 2024:
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