2017 IPO Prospects: Carvana Wants to List, but Will It Follow Beepi to the Scrapyard?

According to the report on used car dealers in the US published by IBISWorld earlier this year, the used car industry is estimated to grow 2.9% annually through the period 2012 through 2017 to $116 billion in revenues. The market has traditionally been dominated by physical dealership stores, but has, as of late, seen several online players as well. But not many of these have really managed to succeed. Carvana is one player who appears to be ready to test stock market appetite for a business model that is yet to turn in profits.

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The Recent Presidio IPO Fails to Create Interest

Many expected the Snap IPO earlier this year to help drive more tech Unicorns into the public markets. Some have followed suit and listed, but to rather unimpressive results. One such company is IT solutions provider Presidio.

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Foursquare on the way to Profitability

A BIA/Kelsey report published in 2015 estimates the location-targeted mobile ad revenues in the US to grow from $6.8 billion in 2015 to $18.2 billion in 2019. The researcher believes that location-based advertising has been a primary driver of mobile advertising growth. After struggling for a while, geolocation services provider Foursquare has finally figured out a sustainable business model and is on the way to profitability.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Will Cisco buy Nutanix?

Technology startup Nutanix went public last October. After the initial surge post listing, the stock hasn’t seen many good days. Last month as the lockup period on the shares expired, the stock fell even further. It does still retain a Billion Dollar Unicorn status, albeit at reducing valuations.

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2017 IPO Prospects: Cloudera Files for IPO

There has been a flurry of IPO activity over the last few weeks with more than seven companies joining the IPO pipeline. Among them is Billion Dollar Unicorn player Cloudera.  >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: In Uptake, Groupon Founder Shows He Has Learnt His Lesson

A recent Zion Market Research report estimates the global predictive analytics market to be worth $10.95 billion by the year 2022, growing at 21% annually over the next five-year-period from $3.49 billion in 2016. There aren’t many companies from the Midwest that have made it to the Billion Dollar Unicorn club. Chicago’s Uptake is one such rare company that has fast tracked its way into the club.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Actifio Focuses on Profitability, not IPO

Traditional forms of data protection involved identifying newer and more innovative ways to copy data so that users can access it in case they lose their core data source. Over the past few years though, a new form of data protection has evolved that is helping in the management of the copies of these data tables. Known as Copy Data Management (CDM) solutions, they manage the creation and use of these copies in an efficient and automated way. It has diversified beyond simply taking copies of data into making it more meaningful by looking for a smart way to deliver copies as needed. IDC estimates the global spend on storage hardware and software to manage copy data to be nearly $44 billion as of 2016. Waltham, MA-based Billion Dollar Unicorn Actifio is a rapidly growing vendor in this space.

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From Iran to Stanford to Silicon Valley Entrepreneur: Farnaz Ronaghi, Co-Founder and CTO of NovoEd (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Can you anchor this for us with some of your business metrics? How many customers do you have now?

Farnaz Ronaghi: I think we have around 50.

Sramana Mitra: What is the average deal size that you have now stabilized on?

Farnaz Ronaghi: It varies quite a bit. We still get into conversations with initiatives. We call a software license if it’s for around $100,000. >>>