How long, of course, will vary. Some go years before topping off again following a big fundraise. Others need to refill more frequently.

The longer it takes, however, the less likely it becomes that fresh investment is forthcoming. That’s concerning given that for a growing list of U.S. unicorns, it’s been more than three years since their last fundraise, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows.

Unicorns that haven’t raised for 3+ years

Who’s on the list? Using Crunchbase data, we identified a sample set of 28 private companies that have a peak valuation of $1 billion or more but haven’t raised a round for years. Most closed their last round between three and four years ago.

Below, we list all the selected companies, along with business models and prior funding:

Representative industries range from connected fitness to enterprise software to digital health. There are consumer-facing companies that generated a lot of buzz several years ago — like local secondhand sales platform OfferUp, luggage-maker Away, or connected fitness brand Zwift.

In many ways, the list is reminiscent of a playlist featuring the greatest hits of 2020. These days, they seem like the startup equivalent of the band that can do the county fair circuit, but won’t be filling stadiums. They’re still around, just not top of mind.

Some were particularly prodigious fundraisers at their peak. Of the 28 companies on our list, five have raised $500 million or more in equity funding to date.

Of those, the largest fundraiser is Miami-based cloud kitchen operator Reef Technology, which raised $1.5 billion in two rounds led or co-led by SoftBank in late 2018 and 2020. But investor interest in the space, which peaked during the pandemic, has since dried up.

Others that raised more than $500 million in total funding also haven’t closed a new round since 2020. One is Symphony Communication Services, a provider of collaboration software for the financial services industry. Another is Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a road-safety platform, which raised $500 million from SoftBank in 2018.

Layoffs and cutbacks abound, along with some closures

Not everyone on the list is still around. Quite a few that have endured, meanwhile, have made some steep cuts along the way.

Proteus Digital Health is one that didn’t make it. The Redwood City, California-based company, a developer of sensor-equipped “smart pills,” raised more than $490 million and was once valued at $1.5 billion. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020.

Packable, the parent company of Amazon seller Pharmapacks, also hit some apparently insurmountable hurdles. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after plans for a SPAC merger fell through.

On the consumer-facing front, meanwhile, we’re also seeing some stiff cutbacks. At Zwift, for example, the company’s co-CEO stepped down earlier this month amid a broader round of layoffs.

Also this month, luggage-maker Away reportedly cut staff by 25%.

Given the current tough fundraising and exit environment, it was actually pretty common to see companies on our list with one or more layoff announcements in the past two years. We did not attempt a comprehensive tally.

The clock is ticking

So how much more runway do these onetime unicorns have ahead? A prior Crunchbase News analysis found startups that raise a round commonly have only a short break before they’re fundraising again. Among U.S. companies that go on to close Series B funding after a Series A, for instance, the median is just under 2 years to do so, according to data from 2012 to 2023.

It’s reasonable to expect companies funded around the market peak from 2020 to early 2022 might have a bit longer to wait. Many startups raised exceptionally large rounds, and have subsequently cut burn rates to make their cash stretch further.

But while fundraising can take longer than expected, it can’t be delayed indefinitely. Crunchbase data shows it’s uncommon to see a gap of four years or more between Series A and Series B rounds, for example. Historical trends for later rounds aren’t too different.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

• Unicorns Last Funded Over Three Years Ago

Related reading:

• It’s Taking Longer For Startups To Raise From Series A To Series B

Illustration: Dom Guzman

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

Lots of big rounds this week, with none bigger than the whopping $1.5 billion raised by sustainability and infrastructure investment firm Generate Capital. On top of that, there were another five rounds of $100 million or more. Who said large growth rounds were dead?

1. Generate Capital, $1.5B, renewable energy: If the name looks familiar, that’s likely because this company has made the list before. Early in 2023, the San Francisco-based green infrastructure investor and operator raised $1.1 billion, per SEC filings and reports. That raise came just about 18 months after it raised $1 billion in 2021. Now Generate is back with a $1.5 billion round raised from a variety of investors, including California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Generate invests in an array of infrastructure projects, from community solar systems to municipal wastewater treatment to electrifying fleets. Founded in 2014, the company has raised $4.2 billion, per Crunchbase.

2. Kore.ai, $150M, artificial intelligence: Another week and another big round for a generative AI startup. AI enterprise conversational platform Kore.ai raised a $150 million round led by FTV Capital. The round also included participation from Nvidia, which of course has been one of the sector’s most active investors. The startup is not new to the AI scene — it’s a decade old — and offers an array of artificial intelligence-related tech from virtual assistants to no-code tools to build AI apps. Founded in 2013, the company has now raised nearly $224 million, per Crunchbase.

3. Zum, $140M, transportation: AI and school buses may not seem like a natural match, but startup Zum would disagree. The Redwood City, California-based transportation company raised a $140 million Series E led by GIC at a $1.3 billion valuation. The new round is a significant jump in value for a company that last raised money in October 2021 — a $130 million Series D — at what was a reported $930 million valuation. The 40% valuation jump is even more impressive considering 2021 was a very different time in the private markets, with venture capital funding hitting all-time highs. Since then, many companies have seen their valuations significantly cut. Zum tries to help school districts increase efficiencies and reduce the costs of managing bus fleets through its proprietary platform — that, of course, uses AI. The platform gives districts visibility so they can optimize routes and even deliver real-time updates to parents. In addition, the startup also has its own fleet of EV buses for districts to use. Founded in 2015, Zum has raised $350 million, per the company.

4. Cour Pharmaceuticals, $105M, biotech: Chicago-based Cour Pharmaceuticals is the top biotech startup on the list this week. The clinical-stage company raised a $105 million Series A co-led by Lumira Ventures and Alpha Wave Ventures. The firm focuses on the development of disease-modifying therapies to treat patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Founded in 2015, the company has raised nearly $136 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Inari, $103M, agtech: Agtech startups don’t often land this high on the list, but Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Inari raised a $103 million equity round at a $1.7 billion valuation. Inari uses AI-powered predictive design and multiplex gene editing to develop corn, soybean and other higher-yielding seeds that require less water. No lead investor was named, but it included investment from the likes of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Rivas Capital. Founded in 2016, Inari has raised $575 million, per the company.

6. Watershed, $100M, climate: San Francisco-based Watershed, an enterprise sustainability platform, locked up a $100 million Series C at a $1.8 billion valuation led by Greenoaks. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $239 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Codeium, $65M, artificial intelligence: Mountain View, California-based Codeium, a generative AI-powered coding toolkit developer, raised a $65 million Series B at a $500 million valuation led by Kleiner Perkins. This is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

8. Accompany Health, $56M, health care: Bethesda, Maryland-based Accompany Health, a primary, behavioral and social care provider for low-income patients, launched with a $56 million Series A. Investors in the round include Venrock and Arch Venture Partners. Founded in 2022, this is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

9. Basking Biosciences, $55M, biotech: Columbus, Ohio-based Columbus Basking Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a therapy to treat stroke, closed a $55 million financing led by New investor ARCH Venture Partners led the round. Founded in 2019, the company has raised nearly $90 million, per Crunchbase.

10. Cohere Health, $50M, health care: Boston-based Cohere Health, a SaaS health care platform, closed a $50 million round led by Deerfield Management. Founded in 2019, Cohere has raised $106 million, per the company.

Big global deals

While Generate easily led the way for the biggest round globally, there was another large private equity raise in India.

• OYO, a global travel tech firm, raised a fresh $400 million in funding.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Jan. 27 to Feb. 2. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

In 2023, the crossover investor giant took part in only 29 completed and announced venture deals — per Crunchbase data — a steep decline from the 168 deals it took part in in 2021 and a 57% drop from the 70 deals in 2022.

As deal-number dropped, so did the total value of all deals Coatue was participating in. The 168 deals Coatue took part in came to nearly $43 billion. (That was the total dollar amount of all the deals, not what Coatue invested. Individual investments in rounds are not typically revealed.)

Last year, the total dollar amount for the 29 deals the firm participated in came to only $4.1 billion, per Crunchbase.

In the headlines

Coatue, whose more noteworthy investments include Lyft, Reddit and Box among others, has made recent headlines for closing its London office earlier this month — the firm still plans to invest in European startups — as well as news that Michael Gilroy, a general partner at the firm who co-led its growth team and focused on fintech companies, is leaving.

However, it also has been reported the firm has raised about $3 billion for a structured equity fund — which allows private companies to raise money through structured financings and avoid down rounds.

Such financings would not be new to Coatue. Back in 2022, it was reported Komodo Health raised a “structured equity infusion” of $200 million led by the firm. Coatue also conducted a $150 million debt financing for Navan — then called TripActions — that same year.

Just last August, Coatue also took part in a $2.3 billion debt financing for AI cloud infrastructure startup CoreWeave. That round actually represented the largest round involving VC-backed companies Coatue took part in last year.

However, the firm also participated in two $300 million funding rounds — for both Ramp and Our Next Energy — as well as a $290 million funding for Sierra Space. Coatue did not lead any of those rounds.

Different time

Of course, Coatue is not alone in its pullback in investing. Other large crossover investors that made a huge splash in the venture market like Tiger Global and Dragoneer also have severely reduced their investment cadence.

As venture started to explode in 2020, many large firms with deep pockets looked at the startup sector as a viable investment that could produce home-run returns. As money turned more expensive after the end of 2021 and startup valuations started to fall, many firms were left with significant markdowns.

So far 2024 does not seem like it will be a big rebound year. For example, Coatue has been part of only one announced round this calendar year — a venture round for Montreal-based software startup Valsoft.

However, things can change fast in venture — just look at how quickly the market turned after 2021.

Related Crunchbase Pro query:

• Coatue Investments

Related reading:

• Khosla Ventures Nears $3B For Funds Even As Venture Slows
• Most Active US Investors: Gaingels And Khosla Ventures Pick Up The Pace
• Andreessen Horowitz May Be Optimistic About Tech, But It’s Still Slowing Its Deal Pace

Funding to the space hit a peak in 2019, amid buzz around a likely Airbnb IPO. At the time, investors were also enthusiastically backing businesses targeting business travel, customized online trip planning, and new models for upscale accommodations.

Then COVID hit, and travel spending dried up. While startups in the space did well on the funding front in 2021 — when pretty much every sector was up — we’ve yet to retrace pre-pandemic highs. For perspective, we charted out the past five years below.

Could travel funding be perking up?

But could things be perking up?

Certainly we’re seeing some big checks lately. Barcelona-headquartered TravelPerk, a business travel management platform, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $104 million in a financing led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and joined by Kinnevik and Felix Capital. The investment, a Series D-1 extension, set a $1.4 billion valuation for the 9-year-old company, which markets to small and medium-sized businesses.

Just over a month earlier, we saw an even bigger round for Singapore-based Klook, focused on booking for leisure travel and activities. The company picked up $210 million in a December round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Smaller but still good-sized rounds are also racking up. This includes an $85 million Series F last year for Berlin-based GetYourGuide, which connects travelers with local guides, and a $70 million round for San Francisco’s Kasa Living, which provides flexible-term accommodations.

The IPO market could also deliver the biggest travel-related startup debut in years if Navan carries out plans for an offering. The corporate travel and expense management software provider filed confidentially for a public offering back in 2022, targeting a $12 billion valuation.  Though valuations and market expectations have changed since then, the company is still high on the list of potential 2024 IPO candidates.

Demand picking up too?

Meanwhile, business travel spending has bounced back a good deal from its pandemic lows.

In an October member poll by the Global Business Travel Association, the majority of respondents said the sector reached near-full recovery in 2023. Most business travel buyers also reported increases in employees attending in-person meetings and conferences, although virtual meetings and hybrid events haven’t lost their popularity either.

Tourists are also back in a big way. Klook, when announcing its financing last month, noted that for many Asian markets 2023 marked the first year of travel recovery, with a rebound in tourism figures and flight bookings. In tandem, the company itself also achieved overall profitability for the first time last year.

Meanwhile, popular tourist destinations were even more crowded than usual. European cities had more visitors than many could comfortably handle, while in the U.S., summer travel bookings hit record highs.

Against that backdrop, it’s not unreasonable to expect at least some of that rising enthusiasm for travel could filter down to startups in the space.

Related Crunchbase Pro query:

• Travel-Related Startup Funding, 2023-Present

Illustration: Dom Guzman

September saw a familiar name top the list of most active U.S. investors as Andreessen Horowitz took the mantle.

However, once again no single investor really dominated the list. Only a16z made more than a dozen investments, and human and planetary health investor SOSV was the only other firm to hit double digits.

The numbers are not that different from September 2022. At that time, the venture market was well into its lull and only about a half-dozen firms announced 10 or more deals apiece.

Let’s take a look at which firms did the most in fall’s first month:

Andreessen Horowitz, 14 deals

Andreessen Horowitz last month posted its biggest investment month since March. After a slow July and August where the noted firm took part in only eight deals total in two months, it jumped back above double digits.

Not surprisingly, some of the rounds the firm took part in were quite large, AI-related raises. Those included participating in the massive $500 million Series I raise for AI-enhanced data analytics provider Databricks, as well as co-leading — along with Nvidia‘s NVentures — Palo Alto, California-based biotech startup Inceptive’s $100 million round. Inceptive aims to use artificial intelligence to discover vaccines and therapeutics.

SOSV, 11 deals

Similar to Andreessen Horowitz, SOSV had its biggest investment month also since March.

However, that’s where the similarities end. SOSV does not lead large rounds the way Andreessen Horowitz does. Instead, most of the rounds SOSV took part in were seed rounds and convertible notes of undisclosed amounts.

That’s not to say the firm doesn’t invest in interesting startups. Its deals include New York-based Calder Biosciences, which is creating next-generation vaccines to protect against infection, and Rantoul, Illinois-based Earnest Agriculture, which creates microbial products for better plant yields.

Khosla Ventures and Gaingels, 8 deals

Khosla Ventures and Vermont-based Gaingels seem to be headed in different directions of late.

The eight deals announced last week were the most deals Menlo Park, California-based Khosla has done with U.S.-based startups since May 2022. However, the firm did announce six deals in July and seven deals in August (and made this list), so it seems to be doing more in the U.S.

Last month, that included taking part in a $52 million round for Oakland, California-based 3D printing construction startup Mighty Buildings.

Gaingels, on the other hand, used to be a regular on this list but has slowed its investment pace of late. After doing between eight and 11 deals a month involving U.S.-based startups, it did only nine total deals in July and August.

However, it quickened its pace a little in September, including taking part in a $10 million Series A for New York-based travel site Point.me.

Alumni Ventures, 7 deals

After leading this list in both July and August, Alumni Ventures — which caters to individual investors who typically don’t have a pathway to the VC market — just made it in September.

While its deal flow dipped slightly, it may have made up for that in terms of deal size.

The firm took part in both EV battery recycling startup Ascend Elements’ $200 million Series C and the $125 million Series B for Enfabrica, which designs networking chips to handle AI workloads.

Also notable:

• General Catalyst was next on the list with six announced deals.
• Andreessen Horowitz topped all firms in rounds led or co-led with four deals.
• SoftBank Group topped the list for rounds led or co-led with the highest dollar amounts for the month, in large part due to leading a $1 billion investment in Pittsburgh-based self-driving, commercial trucking startup Stack AV, as reported by Bloomberg.
• The top investing incubators and accelerators in September were Techstars with 13 deals and Inclusive Ventures Lab with 12 deals.

Methodology

This is a list of investors which took part in the most rounds involving U.S.-based startups. It does not include incubators or accelerators due to the fluctuations their investment numbers can have.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

But some do neither. Rather, having mistimed the market or misjudged their own IPO readiness, some companies continue to lie in wait, prepared to restart the process when conditions improve.

This past week, we saw one such example from Turo, the peer-to-peer car rental platform. The San Francisco-based company — which originally filed to go public in January 2022 — submitted an updated registration that included earnings up to the first half of this year.

To date, 14-year-old Turo has submitted six updated filings, posting regular growth in revenue. For the first half of 2023, revenue totaled $408 million — up from $333 million in the same period a year ago — while net loss widened to $23 million.

Could this latest filing signify that Turo is ready to finally take the IPO plunge? Certainly the window has been opening some, led by Arm’s massive offering this week, as well as planned IPOs from Instacart and Klaviyo.

If so, Turo likely won’t be alone. Should the window stay open, we can expect to see many more unicorns resuscitate IPO plans first initiated toward the tail end of the market boom a couple of years ago.

Three of the top candidates are companies that filed confidentially for a public offering but have not yet done so publicly.

Navan: The corporate travel and expense management software provider formerly known as TripActions reportedly submitted a confidential filing for a public offering roughly a year ago. Buzz around a potential IPO has been mounting for some time for the 8-year-old Palo Alto-based company, which has raised about $1 billion in equity funding and $1.2 billion in debt financing to date. While Navan has yet to submit a public filing, there’s good reason to think this could be imminent as the IPO market heats up.

Reddit: The online discussion forum announced in December 2021 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a planned IPO. Since then, market conditions changed for the worse, while Reddit itself faced criticism following a policy change that prompted platform moderators to strike and shutter forums. We still haven’t seen a public filing, but that could be coming as the IPO window opens.

Cohesity: Data management software provider Cohesity reportedly submitted a confidential filing for an initial public offering in December 2021. Now, it looks like the San Jose-based unicorn may be resuscitating those plans. In August, Cohesity announced several new hires, including a new CFO, Eric Brown, who has prior experience heading finance for public companies including Electronic Arts, McAfee and Polycom.

In addition, there are companies that filed to go public in late 2021 or early 2022 but later withdrew their offerings. These include energy-as-a-service provider Redaptive, business software company Justworks, and workflow automation provider Basis Technologies. While none have formally refiled, it is noteworthy that they were ready to go a couple years ago, before conditions turned. We’ll see if any attempt a restart.

For those considering another shot at an IPO, Thursday’s well-received offering from chip designer Arm Holdings offers an encouraging sign. While valuations of growth technology companies have fallen sharply in the past couple years, there’s still plentiful investor appetite for industry leaders with solid financials.

Related reading

• Arm Shares Pop In Nasdaq Debut, Reopening IPO Market
• Klaviyo And Instacart File Going-Public Plans, Kickstarting IPO Market

Illustration: Dom Guzman

What does the IPO market look like in the second half of 2023?

While IPOs came to a screeching halt last year, we’ve seen a few promising public offerings in the first half of 2023. Johnson & Johnson spinoff Kenvue, for instance, was valued at $50 billion after it went public on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.

Tons of startups are eager to make their public debuts. Mature startups including Stripe and Shein have reportedly mulled over their IPO strategies. Other startups are starting to run out of cash as venture investors pull back — a phenomenon exacerbated by the collapse of preeminent startup bank Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year.

But IPOs are still few and far between, and those that choose to brave the public markets will have to accept that the sky-high public debuts of 2021 likely won’t happen this year. An unprecedented 414 U.S. startups went public in 2021, per Crunchbase data, but that number decreased to 93 in 2022. As of now, only 29 startups have made their public debut this year.

With all that in mind, we make a few bold predictions about the companies that could make their way to the public markets this year, or when the IPO window reopens.

— Keerthi Vedantam

Enterprise software

• Databricks: The San Francisco-based data and AI company always makes everyone’s IPO list — and there’s a good reason for that. It is one of the most valuable private companies, with a $38 billion valuation after raising a $1.6 billion Series H led by Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global in 2021. The company recently talked about surpassing a milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue and has hinted coyly at a potential IPO in the past. It also just made a huge acquisition, buying OpenAI competitor MosaicML for $1.3 billion. The deal for MosaicML could be another step toward the public market, as Databricks looks to expand its portfolio of offerings and cash in on an exploding AI market. Databricks has significant investors to eventually appease — the company has raised more than $3.5 billion, per Crunchbase — so an exit makes sense. Databricks also has deep technology — it creates tools and products to help companies view both structured and unstructured data in a single location without moving between different systems — and a growing market. It even already has its own venture arm, Databricks Ventures. It seems like its evolution to a public company is nearly complete.
• Icertis: This one may be a bit of a curveball, but just follow along. The Bellevue, Washington-based contract management software developer locked up $150 million in financing in late 2022. The funding was an even split of a revolving credit facility and convertible financing from Silicon Valley Bank (yes, that bank). At the time, Icertis CFO Rajat Bahri said the deal would help “build towards the next exciting chapter in our company’s journey.” Could that be an IPO? Eventually convertible notes need to be converted. An IPO allows that to happen. Also, Icertis’ contract platform helps companies structure their commercial, legal and operational data within contracts, and connect that data to its other internal systems such as human resources and CRM platforms. While not the sexiest of markets, allowing data to flow through different internal systems is a big market. The company also is already big. In March 2021, Icertis announced an $80 million Series F at a valuation of more than $2.8 billion and in early 2022 it was reported the company was worth $5 billion.
• Talkdesk: All the way back in the salad days of 2021, the cloud-based contact center company locked up a $230 million Series D and became a decacorn. The San Francisco-based company also named industry veteran Sydney Carey as its first chief financial officer. Carey joined Talkdesk from Sumo Logic, where she helped lead the company’s initial public offering. While Sumo Logic recently became a private company again, perhaps it’s time Talkdesk goes public. Since it’s private, the company does not release financials, but it’s pretty big from some estimates. The company even has its own investment arm, Talkdesk Ventures. It’s also 12 years old, so maybe the time has come?

— Chris Metinko

Consumer startups

I’m not expecting much of an IPO rebound this year for venture-backed companies that are long on futuristic vision and short on real earnings. Investors continue to shy away from companies that launched SPACs and IPOs a couple years ago, most of which are still way down.

However, there could be room for some growth companies with strong revenue and margins to contemplate, and compelling stories to go public. For the consumer and consumer-facing platform space, some names that come to mind include:

• Navan (formerly TripActions): OK, I cheated here. Navan already submitted a confidential filing for a planned public offering, which is widely expected later this year. The Palo Alto, California-based company, which offers software for corporate travel and expense management, has raised over a billion dollars in equity financing to date. In December, the company secured $400 million in credit facilities from Goldman Sachs Bank USA and Silicon Valley Bank, less than two months after raising a $304 million Series G at a $9.2 billion valuation. Investors wouldn’t be putting all that capital to work if they didn’t see an exit on the horizon.
• Shein: The Chinese fast-fashion giant is another much-talked-about IPO candidate. Shein’s path to a U.S. public listing, however, continues to face hurdles, including objections from lawmakers and a valuation that’s well below peak. Still, even with a cut, Shein was still reportedly valued around $64 billion — enough to generate one of the biggest offerings in a long time.
• Upside Foods and Eat Just/GOOD Meat: By most measures, alternative protein upstarts Upside Foods and Eat Just would not be companies deemed likely to dip a toe in IPO waters. Public companies in the space haven’t done so well, most notably Beyond Meat, which is trading close to all-time lows. But last week we got some game-changing news: Upside, a maker of lab-grown meat, and Eat Just, which makes plant-based egg and owns cultivated meat company GOOD Meat, received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start producing their cell-based proteins. It’s the first such approval from U.S. regulators and could spark investor interest in seeing a public listing for these two early innovators. Plus, to deliver on their vision, they’ll need money to scale, something public investors could potentially provide in abundance.

— Joanna Glasner

Fintech

• Stripe: Stripe has been waiting in the wings for an IPO for a while and, as one of the most valuable private companies in the world, is also one of the most obvious predictions on this list. The company filed to go public in 2021, but missed the IPO window when it slammed shut in 2022. The 13-year-old payments provider then pivoted to raise a massive $6.5 billion in a single funding round in March 2023 to cover an upcoming employee tax bill on registered stock units due starting in 2024. It also took a deep step down in valuation to $50 billion — a 47% discount from its most recent funding round two years ago, a deal that valued the company at the time at $95 billion. Prior to its latest funding, Stripe had raised $2.2 billion. The company announced more recently that it has processed $817 billion in transactions in 2022 — up 26% from the previous year. The company reportedly generated $14.3 billion in revenue in 2022. Stripe also laid off 14% of its staff in November 2022, saying “we were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023.” Stripe is a well-branded industry leader whose stated mission is to increase the GDP of the internet. If the company steps out, it would be a strong signal that the IPO markets are not frozen.
• Klarna: Swedish buy now, pay later provider Klarna has been around for 18 years, so it’s not exactly been in a rush to go public. But the company aims to be profitable in 2023, which would make it a good IPO candidate. And like every other venture-backed startup, it has investors waiting to get their returns. Klarna raised $800 million at a much reduced valuation of $6.7 billion in 2022. Just a year earlier, it had been valued at $44.5 billion in a funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Klarna’s revenue in 2022 was reported to be $1.8 billion. Some rivals have already beat it to the public markets — Affirm, a U.S. competitor founded years later in 2012, went public in January 2021 and is currently valued at $4.4 billion. Klarna took steps to cut its losses in half in the first quarter of 2023 compared to a year ago while still growing revenue. And it has said it’s targeting profitability in 2023, another strong hint that an IPO is likely a consideration.

— Gené Teare

Health tech and biotech

• Included Health: Included Health was ramping up for an IPO back in 2022, when we could be optimistic about those things. The company, which has raised $344 million, per Crunchbase data, previously hired bankers to help with the process. But, it met the same fate as other companies who thought their 2021 luck would head into the new year, and halted its plans. Included works with companies paying for their own health care services and was part of the growing employee benefits category. While it may have held off on going public, it is more than ready to enter the market.
• Lyra Health: I’m still confident a teletherapy or telehealth company will go public sometime this year, if only because adoption of virtual care is still on the rise and some of these companies have already raised their Series F. Lyra was one of the first of its kind — established in 2016, it operates on a direct-to-employer model and has worked with companies like Palantir, Zoom and Amgen to provide teletherapy services. The company has raised $910 million, per Crunchbase data, including a $235 million Series G round back in 2022, upping its valuation to $5.58 billion.
• ElevateBio: Why isn’t ElevateBio just a full-fledged big pharma company? The company raised $401 million in Series D funding back in May, and is currently creating the Microsoft 365 of drug development. By that I mean ElevateBio’s enclosed ecosystem of drug discovery, development and manufacturing technologies is all-encompassing. That same ecosystem makes it a favorite among biotech investors and companies vying to partner with Elevate. Biotech IPOs are expected to make a far faster recovery than other tech industries, thanks to strong clinical data exhibited by startups.

— Keerthi Vedantam

Illustration: Dom Guzman

Learn More

About 24 hours after we said Hostaway’s $175 million raise was a rarity, Germany-based travel startup GetYourGuide announced it raised $194 million in a mix of equity and debt, raising its valuation to $2 billion according to CNBC. 

Of that funding, $85 million comes from a Series F round led by Blue Pool Capital with additional participation from KKR and Temasek Holdings. The other $109 million in revolving credit was led by UniCredit, with participation from Citibank, BNP Paribas and KfW.

Tourism startups get some love again

The tourism industry is only just starting to bounce back from the pandemic. While many countries ended or relaxed stay-at-home orders in 2021, the Omicron variant and strict safety protocols made it difficult to travel. According to Crunchbase data, the travel and tourism startup sector garnered a mere $5.9 billion in venture funding in 2022, around $100 million more than what was invested in the sector back in 2016.

With the latest raise, GetYourGuide’s valuation increases 43% from $1.4 billion to $2 billion. It’s one of the few large valuation raises among unicorn startups we’ve seen lately — many large startups have been forced to raise new funding at lower valuations in the past two years, a sign that tech startups were incredibly overvalued during the hype cycle in 2021.

GetYourGuide sells travel experiences, like niche guided wine tours with sommeliers, art gallery walks with experts, and glacier hikes in icy regions. The tours are provided by third-party companies, sometimes local ones, and GetYourGuide gets a commission for every experience it sells on the platform. 

The company is also working on creating original travel experiences, such as meeting the keyholder to the Vatican and doing a walking tour with him. 

The travel guide startup is also integrating generative AI into its platform through language learning models, which can create colorful descriptions for the different classes and tours. These models, popularized by ChatGPT, have become a popular adoption tool for startups across different industries. 

Related Crunchbase query:

• Travel And Tourism Startup Funding

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Hostaway, a vacation rental management software startup, announced on Wednesday it raised $175 million in funding. The round was led by PSG Equity.

The company, which is based in Canada and Finland, is made for property managers to manage bookings, guests and vacancies across different platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. Through the platform, property managers can go through inquiries, manage guest requests and even automate messages to potential customers using ChatGPT.

Hostaway was started in 2015 and has grown to host more than 100,000 short-term rental and vacation properties across 100 countries. The company plans on using the fresh funding to expand into different countries and increase hiring.

“We believe the company has a significant opportunity to lead this industry as it continues to scale its integrated platform, expand globally and help its customers meet the growing demand in the short-term rental market,” said Edward Hughes, Managing Director at PSG, in a statement.

A turbulent time for travel

Hostaway’s raise is pretty promising. As of now, the startup’s $175 million is the second-largest funding round in the industry this year, per Crunchbase data. Besides a $366 million corporate round from an actual airline, ITA Airways, no company has come close to cracking $100 million so far.

That tracks. The travel industry is still reeling from pandemic-era social distancing protocols. While people are eagerly traveling (pretty much everyone I know is in Europe right now), stricter sanitation protocols mean property managers have to spend more time and labor cleaning, and rooms stay vacant longer.

The industry saw a steady increase in startup funding between 2016 and 2019, which dramatically dropped in 2020 once the pandemic hit the United States. After bouncing back in 2021 (like pretty much all industries did), the travel industry garnered only around $5.9 billion globally in 2022.

The travel industry is a tricky one to break into, and many startups have failed despite promising interesting or unique traveling experiences.

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No, it’s not because I’ve actually gone outside. Rather, it stems from hours of screen time tallying funding for outdoorsy-themed startups and staring at websites featuring high-tech campervans, rustic-yet-charming glampsites, and images of people enjoying trees, mountains and lakes. 

Yes, yes, I know you probably think startup investors prefer you cooped up inside. You should be spending crypto on NFTs in the metaverse or feeding content to ad-spewing, AI-enabled algorithms. That kind of thing.

But apparently, tech investors also want you to go camping. Of course, you should also plan to  rent a travel vehicle through a peer-to-peer RV sharing app. And preferably, reserve an exclusive spot booked through a venture-backed campsite aggregator. But still, go camping.

There’s a lot of money in outdoorsy-themed investments

Apparently, there’s big money in getting you out of the house.

Or at least venture investors seem to think so, judging by the sizable sums startups targeting outdoor recreation-related markets have raised in the past few years.

For a sense of where the money is going, we used Crunchbase data to curate a list of startups that have raised rounds in the past three years with an eye to getting consumers off their screens and outside. Altogether, the 21 companies listed below have raised more than $1 billion to date:

Land

Most of the funding is going to companies helping people figure out how to camp, hike and glamp on dry land, which makes sense as we are land mammals.

On this front, the most prodigious fundraiser is AllTrails, a global aggregator of digital trail guides that picked up $150 million from the growth fund of private equity firm Permira in late 2021. It’s a huge platform, with over 30 million users and more than 300,000 trails spanning everywhere from Algeria to Zambia.

People need a place to sleep too, so startups are also offering up rustic accommodations. San Francisco-based Hipcamp, which connects people with tent camping, RV parks, cabins, treehouses and glamping sites, has raised over $97 million in venture funding to date. And Brooklyn-based Getaway, which has raised over $80 million, operates collections of cabins in country locales that are an easy drive from major cities.

Street

Some of us land mammals prefer accommodations we can drive, which is where our second-biggest funding recipient, RV rental platform Outdoorsy enters the picture. The 9-year-old, Austin, Texas-based company offers a platform for people to rent RVs, camper vans and travel trailers. It’s raised $165 million in equity funding to date

In a similar vein, Akron-based RVshare has pulled in $150 million to date for its peer-to-peer rental marketplace. It says owners of the most high-end RVs can make up to $60,000 per year on its platform.

While most of the biggest rounds date back over a year, we’re also seeing more recent deals in the space. Most recently, Spot2Nite, a marketplace for booking RV campsites, picked up $3 million in an April Series A round. The New Orleans-based company says it wants to make the process of securing a site as consistent and modern as booking a hotel or rental car.

Water

Summer is all about getting wet, be it at the pool, lake, river or beach, and startups are on board with that too.

Among the more heavily funded players in this arena is Swimply, a marketplace for renting private pools by the hour. To date, the 5-year-old, Los Angeles-based company has raised over $60 million.

GetMyBoat, a marketplace for boat rentals, yacht charters and water experiences, is also scaling up with a 2022 Series B bringing total funding to $36 million. For those who want to look stylish in or near the water, meanwhile, there are venture-backed swimwear brands Andie and Left On Friday.

Yes, you could just go outside, but….

Now, of course humans don’t need RVs, booking apps, peer-reviewed trail compendiums, or fashionable gear to go outside. It is possible to just, you know, go outside. Maybe take a hike, build a campfire or pitch a tent if you’re so inclined.

However, there’s not a lot of business model scalability in that. Nor does it produce a high-multiple exit for a venture investor. So next time you are thinking about something as old-school as camping, keep that in mind. Just because your ancestors foraged for sustenance in the wild without the help of marketplace apps doesn’t mean you have to follow in their footsteps.

Related Crunchbase Pro query

• Summer Recreation-Related Startups

Photo: Courtesy of  Scott Goodwill via Unsplash.

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