Billion Dollar Unicorns: Apptio Decides to Go Back to Being Privately Held

IT Business Management firm Apptio has had a roller coaster ride in the past few years. Founded in 2007, Apptio had listed on the Nasdaq in 2016. The company continued to gain valuation while being listed. But last year, it agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners in a move that has been questioned by shareholders. Late last year, shareholders even filed a lawsuit challenging the acquisition.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Pluralsight to Focus on Enterprise

According to a Research and Markets report, the global education technology market is estimated to grow 15% annually during the period 2018 to 2024. The growth is expected to be driven by academic institutions who are providing off-campus licenses for software, repositories for courses and study materials, and online course catalogs. Cedar Valley, Utah-based EdTech company and Billion Dollar Unicorn Pluralsight (Nasdaq: PS) recently reported its fourth quarter results that surpassed market expectations.

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Indian Robotics Firm GreyOrange Takes on Amazon’s Kiva

According to ResearchAndMarkets, the global inventory robots market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 13% by 2023 and expected to reach $3.1 billion by 2020. Booming growth of the e-commerce industry comes with its own problems such as rising wages, increasing rivalry, and price wars. To deal with them, retailers are turning to inventory robots. GreyOrange is a company that designs, manufactures, and deploys advanced robotics systems for warehouses, distribution and fulfillment centers. It has a 90% market share in India. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Spotify Eyeing Podcasts

According to an Edison Research report, nearly 73 million people in the US listen to some form of podcast on a monthly basis. While podcasts have been around for a while, the service gained popularity in 2014 following the release of an investigative documentary called Serial that provided different views on a murder investigation and trial. Recently, Billion Dollar Unicorn  Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) also recognized the importance of the podcast market when it announced two acquisitions in the space. But first, the financial results.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Proofpoint Steadily Building Through Acquisitions

According to a Markets and Markets research report, the global cyber security market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.2% from $152.71 billion in 2018 to $248.26 billion by 2023. The growth is expected to be driven by the growing need for cloud-based solutions among SMBs. Sunnyvale-based Proofpoint (Nasdaq: PFPT) is a cloud-based enterprise email security, e-discovery, and compliance service provider that continues to see strong revenue growth.

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Tableau Grows Through Small Acquisitions

According to a report published late last year, the global Data Visualization Applications Market is expected to grow at 10% CAGR by 2026. The growth is expected to be driven by the healthcare industry as it leverages the application of MRI in several medical areas including cardiology, radiology, and oncology. Recently, Billion Dollar Unicorn Tableau (NYSE: DATA) announced its fourth quarter results but its weak outlook failed to impress the market.

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What Will eBay do to Calm Down Investors?

For the past few years, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) has been trying several strategies such as improving customer experience, search features, and improving seller capabilities to deal with Amazon’s might. But none of them seem to have worked for it as its growth has continued to slow down. For the recently reported quarter, eBay beat market expectations and even tried to lure the investors with the promise of a dividend. But they aren’t pleased and have initiated activist actions.

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Zendesk and Freshworks Follow Different Acquisition Strategies

According to a recent Market Research report, the global Helpdesk Automation Market is expected to grow to more than $10 billion by 2022, recording an annualized growth rate of 32% over the next few years. Earlier this week, Billion Dollar Unicorn Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN) reported its fourth quarter results that surpassed all market expectations and sent the stock soaring to year-high levels.

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