2016 IPO Prospects: Anaplan Getting Ready to Go Public

According to a report by Grand View Research, the global ERP software market is estimated to grow 7% annually over the next six years to $48.22 billion by the year 2022. The growth in the industry is estimated to be driven by implementation of ERP software in the medium enterprises and the development and implementation of cloud-based ERP software. Anaplan is a cloud-based planning and modeling company that is now looking to go public. >>>

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Baidu Moving Beyond Search

According to IResearch, China’s on-demand economy is projected to grow to 7.2 trillion yuan (~ $1.1 trillion) by 2017. Users of Online-to-Offline services are estimated to rise 29% next year to 400 million. The size of the economy has prompted China’s biggest Internet players including Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu to invest in the segment.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Udacity Leans on Industry Giants for Monetization

The rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has given rise to several startups like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity with a mission to provide high quality education to students anywhere in the world. However, MOOCs came with its own set of problems like low course completion rates and monetization. Udacity has come up with solutions to these problems and is one of the first MOOC startups to join the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: For Magic Leap, Unicorn Status No Longer Virtual

According to Digi-Capital, augmented reality devices are expected to deliver $90 billion in revenues by the year 2020. On the other hand, virtual reality headsets are expected to generate only $30 billion in revenues by 2020. Technology giants have already started investing in the market. Two years ago, Facebook acquired Oculus Rift, another virtual reality technology developer, for an estimated $2 billion. Microsoft recently released its augmented reality offering in the form of the HoloLens headset. Sony Corporation in Japan is developing Project Morpheus and HTC Corporation in Taiwan is working with Valve Corporation in the US to develop HTC Vive, another head-mounted display. Billion Dollar Unicorn Club member Magic Leap is also racing to its product release.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Uptake Joins the Club

According to the IDC, global organizations were expected to spend about $120 billion in 2015 to connect factory operations, building systems, and mobile equipment in the field to the Internet of Things. Gartner reports that in 2014, 278 million factory machines, construction vehicles, and other pieces of industrial equipment were connected to the Internet of Things. By 2020 Gartner expects 526 million pieces of manufacturing equipment to be connected. Billion Dollar Unicorn Club member Uptake is already growing based on this trend.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: WePiao Succeeds in Online Ticketing in China

According to China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the country’s box office revenues grew 48% last year to RMB40 billion (~US$6.2 billion). During the year, cinema goers increased by 48% as well to 1.14 billion. China is seeing a big push in online and mobile purchase of movie tickets. Reports suggest that in the first half of the year, nearly 70% of the movie ticket purchases were made online. Little wonder then that the industry is giving rise to members of the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club.

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SAP is Also Counting on the Cloud and Analytics

Analysts believe that despite the increased adoption of cloud-based services, even by the year 2020, on-premise ERP software would continue to have a bigger market share. On-premise ERP solutions are expected to account for 57% of the ERP market. But cloud-based ERP would be the fastest growing solution with a CAGR of 10% during the period 2014 to 2020. In another report, Gartner estimates the worldwide CRM market to be a $36 billion market by 2017 with nearly 47% of the market being cloud-based.

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Ping Identity Getting Ready for IPO

According to Allied Market Research, the global cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) market is expected to reap in revenue of $2.8 billion by 2020 at a CAGR of 26.2% during period 2015 to 2020. Ping Identity is a key player and pioneer in this market. >>>

Local Reviews Sites Re-evaluating Monetization Models

According to a BIA/Kelsey report, the Yellow Pages industry is expected to grow to $7 billion this year. Bigger vendors like Facebook and Google are also entering the market by creating their own versions of review-based yellow pages. Their entry is hurting the market where digital players are already struggling to make it a worthwhile business opportunity. >>>

Alibaba Invests Globally to Regain Glory

Two years ago, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) went public at the biggest US IPO ever when it raised $21.8 billion at a valuation of $167.6 billion. Soon after, the stock continued to skyrocket and was soon trading at valuations north of $215 billion. Since then though, the company’s ride has been bumpy. Its stock price had fallen much below IPO levels last year before recovering this year. But now, Alibaba looks to be investing aggressively in market expansion, especially geographic.

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