Billion Dollar Unicorns: SimpliVity a Prospect

According to IDC, the worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 6.2% to $2.5 billion in 3Q 2015. Hyperconverged systems sales grew 155.3%, generating more than $278.8 million in sales or 10.9% of the converged systems market. Riding on this high growth, hyperconverged systems vendor SimpliVity has managed to make it to the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club within two years of its product launch. >>>

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2016 IPO Prospects: Pinterest Finally Sees Revenues, But are they Enough?

According to an eMarketer report published last year, global social network ad spending was estimated to grow from $17.85 billion in 2014 to $25.14 billion in 2015. By 2017, this market is expected to grow to $41 billion. While Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn dominate the market with more than 75% share, others are also gaining ground.

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2016 IPO Prospects: Fanatics Expanding Its Playing Field

According to an IBISWorld report, the licensed sports apparel market in the US is estimated to have grown 6% annually over the period 2010 through 2015 to be worth $8.3 billion. The industry has been dominated by traditional players like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Sports Authority. Last week, Sports Authority announced that it was going bankrupt and planned to close 140 stores, nearly a third of its stores. Analysts believe that the company has not been able to keep up with the competition that is not only coming from other brick-and-mortar stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods, but also from other online stores such as Fanatics and Amazon.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Mozido Delivers Mobile Payment to Non-Banking Customers

According to eMarketer, the total value of mobile payment transactions in the US will grow 210% this year to $27.05 billion. eMarketer estimates that mobile payments in 2015 in the US were worth $8.71 billion, with users spending an average of nearly $376 annually using mobile devices as a payment method. By 2019, mobile payment transactions in the country are expected to grow to $210.45 billion. Billion Dollar Unicorn player Mozido is already delivering strong products in this market.

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Struggle for HP Continues Post-Split

This was the first quarter that HP reported its financials as two separate entities – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (NYSE: HPE) and HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ). Despite the split and the company managing to surpass market expectations, HP doesn’t appear to be doing anything radical to beat the declining trends in the industry.

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CloudFlare Delays IPO Plans

According to Gartner, worldwide spending on information security in 2015 was expected to reach $75.4 billion, up 4.7% over 2014 driven by government programs, increased legislation and high-profile data breaches. A MarketsandMarkets report expects the global cyber security market to grow at a CAGR of 9.8% to reach $170.21 billion by 2020. CloudFlare, which entered the Billion Dollar Club in 2012, expected to go public in 2017. But with the current turmoil in the market, it has delayed its plans. >>>

2016 IPO Prospects: Apttus Bootstrapped First, Raised Money Later

The Quote-to-Cash industry appears to be a high interest industry right now. According to Gartner, the market opportunity is expected to grow to $41 billion in 2018 from $31 billion in 2015. In December last year, Salesforce spent $360 million on the acquisition of SteelBrick, a startup in this space. San Mateo-based Apttus is a much bigger player in the market and is preparing to go public now.

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Workday Eating into Oracle and SAP

Workday (NYSE: WDAY) continues to compete and beat Oracle and SAP at their own game. The company has shown how to uproot legacy vendors like Oracle and SAP by offering a cloud-based solution. In the last quarter, Workday replaced Oracle at Bank of America and signed 40 new customers within the cloud-based financial management space at the expense of Oracle and SAP. According to Workday, every large customer that it is winning is replacing either an Oracle or SAP implementation of legacy software and now, it is replacing them in the cloud-based application segment as well.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: OfferUp Still Needs to Figure out Revenue Model

I have always questioned sky-high valuations in the absence of a justifiable business model. One such company is local Peer-to-Peer commerce player OfferUp. Over the last five years, the company has achieved the Billion Dollar Unicorn status within the local P2P market, without even figuring out how to earn revenues. >>>

2016 IPO Prospects: MuleSoft is a Unicorn, but Detailed Financials Remain Unknown

According to a MarketsAndMarkets research report, the global enterprise application integration market is estimated to grow from $7.85 billion in 2014 to $13.35 billion in 2019. That translates to an annualized growth rate of 11% over the five year period. Last year, San Francisco-based MuleSoft was hoping to become a Billion Dollar Unicorn in the industry. And, it did.

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