Perplexity is on a fundraising hot streak
How hot is the AI-startup fundraising market right now? If you’re an AI-search company, it’s really, really hot. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that AI startup Perplexity is in talks to r...
OpenAI is in the business of making OpenAI employees rich
Since OpenAI closed its massive $6.6 billion funding round that valued the company at $157 billion, I’ve been wondering how they managed to convince investors that the valuation makes sense. The answe...
Is it bad to rely on one customer for 87% of your revenue? An AI company that’s going public is about to find out
Investors have long been waiting for the proverbial IPO window to reopen, and chipmaker Cerebras Systems may be the answer to their prayers. On Monday, Cerebras, an AI chip maker, filed its S-1 to pre...
Trump media stock fell to its lowest levels since IPO
Shares of former president Donald Trump’s media company dropped to $16.98 on Wednesday, the lowest since it went public, wiping out all of its gains this year. went public on March 26 through a blank-...
A startup with 10 employees is now worth $5 billion
A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A billion dollars. That’s what a young Justin Timberlake told his castmates in a scene from The Social Network — the 2010 film about the rise of Fa...
The best AI fund of 2024? The S&P 500.
If I asked you to name the defining technological trend of the past two years, you would probably say, “artificial intelligence,” and if I asked you how artificial intelligence stocks had performed ov...
IPOs slow? Invent your own private stock market!
I have written, a few times now, about how a slowdown in private equity exits has been putting pressure on funds that need to return capital to their investors, with some funds now loading their compa...
Snowflake’s business is selling its own stock to employees
A favorite accounting trick for publicly-traded companies is to exclude stock-based compensation from EBITDA and cash flow to paint an optimistic picture of company performance. For example, if a comp...
Cava is valued at $35 million per restaurant
While the restaurant industry was buzzing with the news of Starbucks poaching Chipotle's CEO Brian Niccol, and subsequently adding billions of dollars to its market cap , another fast-casual chain was...
Nasdaq is (finally) cracking down on reverse stock splits
Over the last couple of years, you may have seen a stock chart that looks something like this, where the current price is down 90% or more from a peak of more than $1,000 per share. But this chart is ...
Reddit vs. Meta: No social company makes money from ads quite like Meta
WallStreetBets Ticker RDDT began trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, as Reddit became the first social media platform to go public since Pinterest in 2019, with investors aggressively u...
Payment processed: The rise of Stripe
Chips off the table Fintech darling Stripe has struck a deal for current and former employees to sell ~$1 billion in Stripe shares, possibly delaying the company’s long-awaited IPO. The good news for...
Two-to-one: Flutter's US expansion is paying off
Two-to-one Flutter Entertainment, one of the world's largest gambling companies and the owner of FanDuel, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday . The move makes Flutter a dual-liste...
r/IPO: Reddit's hoping to go public in March
IPO forum Social media platform Reddit has confidentially filed paperwork for its long-awaited public listing , aiming for a potential debut in March, after a series of failed attempts at an IPO that...
New outfit: Fast-fashion giant Shein is looking to IPO
Shein bright Fast-fashion giant Shein has filed confidential paperwork for a potential public listing in early 2024, seeking a valuation of up to $90 billion (per Bloomberg ), which would make the 15...
Correction territory: Some perspective on the S&P 500's recent fall
On Friday, the S&P 500 entered correction territory , with the flagship index now down more than 10% from its July peak, and some 14% from the peak in December 2021. That takes the total year-to-date ...
Undercooked: Blue Apron's business model never added up
Undercooked Meal kit maker Blue Apron is set to be acquired by Wonder Group in a deal that values Blue Apron at $103 million — a 95% discount from its lofty $1.89 billion IPO price in 2017. Blue Apr...
Birkenstocks: The humble sandal maker is set to IPO
Birkenstock is the latest firm looking to test the IPO waters, as the iconic sandal maker eyes a deal that could value the company at more than $8 billion . Family footsteps Birkenstock can trace i...
Long-awaited delivery: Instacart's IPO is here
A long-awaited delivery Instacart is — finally — gearing up to make its debut on the public market, with the grocery delivery company targeting a valuation range of $8.6bn to $9.3bn, a significant di...
Turning a new leaf: Vegan brands have shed billions since their IPOs
Turning a new leaf Alternative vegan products — mostly soy, gluten, and plant protein fashioned into cow-less burger patties, pork-free sausages, and milk-that-isn’t-milk — have been leading the char...