With that in mind, we once again offer up some ideas for companies we think would be top contenders when the public markets eventually reopen for new tech listings.

(You can see our predictions from 2022 and 2023 here, if you want to see just how wrong we’ve been in years past.)

Enterprise tech and cybersecurity

Arctic Wolf: Late in 2022, the Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based cybersecurity company raised $401 million in convertible notes led by existing investor Owl Rock Capital. Convertible notes work like a short-term loan, but these notes are repaid to the investor at a later point in equity — i.e. after an IPO — typically at a discount. However, there has to be an event to turn those notes to equity. That’s why we’re thinking after more than a year, maybe it’s time for the managed security provider to test the public market waters. Arctic Wolf is seasoned — it was founded in 2012 — and in July 2021 raised $150 million in a Series F, which took its valuation from $1.3 billion to $4.3 billion. At that time, then-CEO Brian NeSmith said an IPO was likely the next logical move. However, maybe that’s the problem — those valuations from 2021 are hard to reconcile now.

Databricks: If we keep putting Databricks on this list, eventually we’ll be right. In all honesty, we kinda doubt the San Francisco-based data and AI company will see an IPO in 2024. The simple reason is: it just doesn’t need to do it. The 10-year-old company has more than enough investors willing to support it in the private market, and who would go public when they don’t have to? But maybe this is a good time for an AI-related company to go public while investor appetite is there. The company hit a $43 billion valuation after raising a $685 million — per a filing — Series I led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates in September. The company talked about surpassing a milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue this summer and has in the past hinted coyly at a potential IPO. It also just made a huge acquisition this year, buying OpenAI competitor MosaicML for $1.3 billion. Databricks has significant investors to eventually appease — the company has raised more than $3.5 billion, per Crunchbase — as well as deep technology, as it creates tools and products to help companies view both structured and unstructured data in a single location without moving between different systems. Maybe 2024 will be the year.

Rubrik: This one may be a layup, but we’ll see. In September, Bloomberg reported cloud and data security startup Rubrik was interested in going public as early as the fourth quarter of 2023. That would make sense. The company is nearly a decade old and has raised significant cash from the likes of Microsoft, Bain Capital Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Last January, the company also reported it had surpassed $500 million in software subscription annual recurring revenue and appointed Mark McLaughlin, former Palo Alto Networks chairman and CEO, to its board of directors. Expanding your board with those that have knowledge of how to run a public company and hitting milestones can sometimes point toward an IPO.

ServiceTitan: The cloud-based software provider for residential and commercial HVAC, plumbing, electrical and other field-service businesses has been rumored to be sniffing around the public markets for a while now. In September of 2021, Reuters reported the company was talking to investment banks and law firms for a potential IPO. Months before that, it raised a $200 million round led by Thoma Bravo at a $9.3 billion valuation. The 11-year-old company has other big-name investors, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management, which has helped it raise about $1.1 billion, per Crunchbase. Those investors likely eventually want some liquidity back for their investment. ServiceTitan also is not getting any younger, being founded in 2012 and in the last few years it has made a handful of acquisitions — which can often be a lead-up to an eventual IPO. Perhaps it is having a hard time living up to that 2021 valuation, but regardless, the clock is ticking.

— Chris Metinko

Fintech and banking

Stripe: As we’re out and about in Silicon Valley, we hear a lot of buzz and interest in investor circles about 13-year-oId Stripe maybe finally going public in 2024. The payments startup’s current value is $50 billion (though down from the $95 billion it saw after its Series H funding in 2021) thanks to a $6.5 billion funding it raised last year to cover early employee stock option costs. A possible clue that a long-awaited IPO for Stripe could be nigh: The San Francisco-based company brought veteran CFO Steffan Tomlinson — who had previously taken Confluent and Palo Alto Networks public — on board in September 2023.

Klarna: Buy now, pay later payment services Klarna from Stockholm is in the process of  setting up a U.K. holding company, which signals a potential option to list in the U.K. However, the company says it has no immediate plans to go public. It slashed its valuation by more than 85% to $6.7 billion in mid-2022. However Affirm, a U.S. competitor, has seen its stock rise by more than 300% this year to a value over $12 billion, which one would think would at least make 18-year-old Klarna consider the public markets. And its investors, which includes Sequoia Capital, are surely looking for a payout sooner rather than later.

Starling Bank: Among the neobanks, Starling Bank in the U.K. seems to be poised to go public first, with lots of strong numbers underlying its business. The company, now on the cusp of being a decade old, posted profits of $243 million for the year ending in March 2023, growing sixfold year over year. The company received a U.K. banking license in 2016. CEO Anne Boden stepped down in May to hand the reins to COO John Mountain, who will be the interim CEO. Starling is also said to have 4 million accounts across four different account types. Other challenger banks in Europe include Revolut, Monzo, N26 and Atom Bank.

— Gené Teare

Checkout.com: The London-based company says it’s in no hurry to check out to the public markets, but if its biggest competitor, Stripe, does, maybe Checkout.com will also get in line? The e-commerce payments startup has now raised $1.8 billion from investors including Dragoneer, Insight Partners, Tiger Global and Coatue — most recently a $1 billion round in January 2022 at a valuation of $40 billion. But CEO Guillaume Pousaz told TechCrunch in December 2022 that the company had lowered its internal valuation to $11 billion. The move was to reprice shares for employees and not a downround, he said — in fact, Pousaz said then, Checkout.com was in no hurry to raise additional funding. But investors who have poured money into the now 12-year-old company surely want to get returns and liquidity some time, right? (It’s also worth noting that the company reportedly saw numerous C-suite execs depart last year and laid off dozens of employees — which could either be seen as a sign of trouble, or that the company is making the sort of cost-cutting moves public market investors might want to see.)

Plaid: This is the third year in a row we’ve put the San Francisco-based startup on this list, but this time we really mean it! Now, 11-year-old Plaid, which connects user bank accounts to fintech apps, has certainly been dropping clues about its desire to go public since a planned $5 billion sale to Visa was scrapped in 2021 following regulatory issues. Plaid CEO Zachary Perret told Fortune in November that “an IPO is certainly an aspiration” and that the company would consider either a traditional IPO or a direct listing. The same month, the company hired former Expedia CFO Eric Hart as its first chief financial officer — the sort of move that always gets tongues wagging about IPO plans. The company has raised more than $734 million from investors, most recently at a $13.4 billion valuation in 2021.

— Marlize van Romburgh

Cleantech

Redwood Materials: The battery recycling company seems to fit a lot of the criteria that public investors like. It has a prominent founder and CEO (former Tesla CTO JB Strabuel). It has attracted $1.8 billion in equity funding from high-profile late-stage investors including Goldman Sachs and T. Rowe Price. And it’s an area where, with the right technology and scaling methodology, it’s hard to envision a real cap on potential demand. With that in mind, we wouldn’t be shocked to see the 6-year-old Nevada-based company test the waters for a potential offering next year.

— Joanna Glasner

Retail and travel

Navan: Navan, formerly known as TripActions, reportedly submitted a confidential filing for a public offering in September 2022. The corporate travel and expense management software provider has yet to file publicly for an IPO, but there’s reason to believe it’ll do so in 2024. For one, the 8-year-old, Palo Alto, California-based company has raised roughly $1 billion in equity funding and $1.2 billion in debt funding over the years, with lead venture backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Greenoaks, and Coatue, who’d certainly appreciate an exit. More recently, the company laid off 5% of staff last month in a move reportedly aimed at speeding its path to profitability.

Turo: The peer-to-peer car rental marketplace sure would like to go public. It originally filed to go public in January 2022. But unlike others who relinquished IPO dreams when market conditions turned, San Francisco-based Turo is still revving to go. The 14-year-old company has consistently submitted amended filings to the SEC, including the most recent in mid-November. For the first nine months of last year, the company had $666 million in revenue, up nearly 20% from the year-ago period.

— Joanna Glasner

Shein: We have to include this one on the list, of course. In November, Shein reportedly filed confidentially for a 2024 IPO in the U.S. The Chinese fast-fashion retailer has raised some $4.1 billion from investors including Sequoia Capital China, Tiger Global Management and General Atlantic. It was last valued at $60 billion in a May 2023 funding round (though that was down more than a third from a year earlier). Shein is technically based in Singapore since it moved its headquarters there from China in 2022 in what was seen as IPO prep. Since its founding in 2008, it has shaken up the apparel industry with its low-cost clothing and other goods shipped directly to American and Western consumers from factories in Asia. Its growth has been stratospheric: It generated an estimated $23 billion in sales in 2022 and accounted for nearly one-fifth of the fast-fashion market that year. If it does go public this year, it’ll be one of the largest listings in the U.S. by a Chinese company and could well help kickstart the IPO market overall for other hopefuls.

— Marlize van Romburgh

Health tech and agtech

Strive Health: Denver-based Strive Health bills itself as a next-generation kidney care provider, with a focus on identifying conditions earlier, driving better outcomes and lowering costs. To that end, the 5-year-old company has raised $386 million to date, including a $166 million May Series C led by New Enterprise Associates. While Strive isn’t one of the “usual suspects” on IPO prediction lists, we thought it warranted inclusion due to its prodigious fundraising and fast growth, as well as because health care is an industry where it’s not uncommon to launch public offerings after a big Series C.

— Joanna Glasner

Farmers Business Network: Here’s a prediction we’re dusting off from 2022. San Carlos, California-based Farmers Business Network makes a platform that allows farmers to get up-to-date data on everything from seed selection to operations in an effort to help them minimize risk and maximize profits. The startup, which will be a decade old next year, reportedly was making moves toward an IPO in 2022. CEO Amol Deshpande told Bloomberg that year: “We’re certainly of a scale where we can IPO, without a shadow of a doubt.” Maybe this will be the year.

— Marlize van Romburgh

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Stripe has already filed IPO paperwork.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

In many ways, we expect 2024 to be the year when things settle down a bit. The buzz around AI will likely wane, but so, hopefully, will layoffs. The IPO markets may make a tepid comeback and we expect that after nearly two years of falling funding, venture investment will level off.

Here’s a look at five trends Crunchbase News’ editors and reporters are watching in the new year.

The AI buzz wears off

Perhaps the most interesting thing to watch in 2024 will be what happens to AI and more specifically, AI investment.

While $100 million-plus rounds were the norm this year, many investors are at least talking of a potential pullback in the market as valuations have continued to skyrocket and many question how many winners there will be in the generative AI market.

Sure, the OpenAIs and Anthropics likely will continue to be able to get nearly any valuations they want, but FOMO seems to be wearing off for investors in the space and many think other changes in the industry could affect investor sentiment.

Even as 2023 wore on, many investors seemed less and less interested in marketing or sales platforms that just wrapped AI around their platform.

Some VCs expect the legal and regulatory dilemmas AI companies could face in both the U.S. and overseas to lead to a slowdown in the flood of AI funding startups saw during 2023.

Others point to the fact that when the mobile revolution occurred more than a decade ago, the biggest winners when it came to the foundational infrastructure layer ended up being well-established tech companies. Sure, there were startup winners — like Twilio — but many Big Tech companies benefited the most from the last wave.

Of course, those Big Tech firms are already playing a large role in AI, investing billions of dollars in a variety of AI startups. The likes of Nvidia, Salesforce 1, Microsoft and Google have been wildly active and that could continue to propel AI funding into the new year.

It is important to remember AI is expensive. Startups need data, computing power, talent and a variety of other resources — all things Big Tech companies can provide.

If they stop and VCs pull back on cash, 2024 could get cold for many hot AI startups.

— Chris Metinko

Venture fund slowdown

While many expect to see an uptick in startups shuttering due to changes in the funding landscape (see Convoy), what about VC firms themselves?

The OpenView news seemed to rock the venture world a little when it broke in December, and its uncertain future is likely to be watched by many.

However, folks in the VC world expect similar types of headlines in 2024.

The salad days of 2020 and 2021 birthed a lot of new firms, many of which are seeing their investments down on paper after a good number of startups have had to slash valuations. These firms will not be able to raise new funds, forcing some to close up shop and possibly even sell their current stakes in companies early.

Even some large, well-established firms had to change fundraising plans to adjust to the evolving market this year, as both San Francisco-based Founders Fund and New York-based Tiger Global announced cuts to their new funds.

Expect more of that. Venture capital seems like a fun business when money is cheap, but when a recalibration happens, its risks become apparent.

— Chris Metinko

Tech layoffs have slowed but aren’t over

With at least 300,000 tech workers in the U.S. alone who’ve lost their jobs since we started tracking tech layoffs in early 2022, we wish we could say we’re expecting the job cuts to end in 2024. But with startups continuing to shut down in late 2023 and large companies even making cuts leading into the holidays, it doesn’t look like layoffs are ending just yet.

Yes, we fortunately haven’t seen the scale of layoffs we saw in November 2022 and January 2023 — when large tech companies including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Salesforce cut jobs by the tens of thousands — but a quick look at The Crunchbase Tech Layoffs Tracker (and our LinkedIn feeds) makes it clear there’s still plenty of pain in the tech workforce. While some of the layoffs are strategic trims, others are massive cuts across the board.

Couple that with a still lackluster outlook for the 2024 IPO market and a difficult fundraising for startups, and we expect layoffs to continue to pile up at least for the foreseeable future.

— Marlize van Romburgh

The end of the ‘everything is down’ narrative

As we’ve discussed, 2023 was a year of negative comps. Startup investment across pretty much every sector, stage and geography was down considerably from 2022 and even further below the 2021 peak.

In 2024, however, it’ll be much easier to craft a positive narrative for year-over-year funding. In sectors like, say, consumer products e-commerce, where investment has shriveled in recent quarters, it won’t take much to proclaim a sharp upturn.

We’re also hopeful that overall startup investment will tick higher in 2024. With tech stocks up in recent weeks, buoyed by hopes of Fed rate cuts, we’re also likely to see a return, finally, of some IPOs.

— Joanna Glasner 

Don’t expect an IPO boom, though

We may see a return for some IPOs next year, but don’t expect the market for new listings to come roaring back.

That’s the updated outlook we’re hearing from those who watch the markets closely, especially given the tepid performances of 2023 listings Klaviyo and Instacart, the only two major venture-backed IPOs since late 2021.

In the current environment, public-market investors are pickier about which companies they want to see IPO, insiders have told us. Namely, they’re more interested in profitability than growth at all costs, and they’re often looking for larger, more established companies that can sustain a robust market capitalization.

That means companies that can delay an IPO may do so until 2025 or later.

Then again, there are close to 1,500 private companies with valuations of $1 billion or more currently on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board — and they all have to go public or otherwise exit at some time.

— Gené Teare

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

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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a statement on Friday that said it had been appointed receiver for the bank. Insured deposits of up to $250,000 were protected, regulators said. Further detail on what would happen to deposits over the insured amount weren’t available. The FDIC urged those depositers to call a hotline at 1-866-799-0959.

The fallout of the bank failure in Silicon Valley is sure to be dramatic. SVB is vastly interconnected with the rest of the venture-backed ecosystem and alone banks about half of all venture-backed startups in the U.S., as well as many of those companies’ investors.

The Santa Clara, California-based bank has 17 branches in the Golden State and Massachusetts. Those branches will reopen on Monday for business, the FDIC said. As of Dec. 31, SVB had about $209 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits, according to the regulator.

“At the time of closing, the amount of deposits in excess of the insurance limits was undetermined,” the FDIC said. “The amount of uninsured deposits will be determined once the FDIC obtains additional information from the bank and customers.”

— This is a developing story. Check back for more.

Rapid decline

The dramatic sequence of events kicked off Thursday when SVB announced it had taken a $1.8 billion loss in Q1 by selling $21 billion in bonds — essentially its entire portfolio of securities available to sell — in order to shore up its balance sheet. It would seek to raise $2.25 billion by selling stock, it said. Shares of SVB fell another 68% in pre-market trading Friday morning before they were halted.

CNBC and other publications had reported earlier that SVB had been in talks to sell itself after the attempt to raise capital failed, and that larger financial institutions had been looking at the Santa Clara-based bank. Those deals apparently did not come to fruition fast enough to stave off a bank failure.

SVB is the first failure of an FDIC-insured institution this year. Its share price decline on Thursday had already prompted a broader bank stock sell-off and sent jitters through the stock market.

The bank has said its balance sheet came under pressure after its startup clients began to draw down deposits. “We are taking these actions because we expect continued higher interest rates, pressured public and private markets, and elevated cash burn levels from our clients as they invest in their businesses,” the bank wrote in a letter to shareholders.

In an earlier presentation to investors, SVB said client cash burn “remains about 2x higher than pre-2021 levels and has not adjusted to the slower fundraising environment,” seemingly illustrating that startups have not reversed their previous patterns of spending.

SVB connections run through Silicon Valley

SVB’s Rolodex of venture firms it does business with is a who’s who of money in the valley — with names such as Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Accel among the most prominent.

According to data pulled from Crunchbase, the bank participated in 75 founding rounds last year — mainly involving venture debt — that totaled $5.7 billion. That included leading a $200 million venture debt round for San Jose-based Automation Anywhere. That deal number is likely low, as many private companies do not publicly divulge debt financings — but nevertheless shows how intertwined the bank has become to the tech startup ecosystem.

In 2021, SVB took part in 73 rounds that totaled $3.1 billion, per Crunchbase. Thus far this year, the bank has participated in eight announced rounds, including leading a $30 million debt round for San Francisco-based InfluxData.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Illustration: Dom Guzman

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1) IPO markets will remain sluggish, but if anybody is going public it could be these companies. While market conditions remain crummy, there’s also a huge backlog of late-stage startups that have to find an exit at some point. With that in mind, we offered up ideas for 15 companies — ranging from logistics unicorn Flexport to grocery delivery app Instacart — that could be public-market candidates if and when the IPO markets open back up.

2) Expect more M&A as companies go bargain shopping: Speaking of exits, we could see more mergers and acquisitions in 2023, dealmakers predict. Although rising interest rates make capital more expensive, there are plenty of deep-pocketed buyers who already have money to spend and could go bargain-hunting as startup valuations drop, sources told Senior Reporter Chris Metinko.

3) Cybersecurity valuations will come back to Earth: Even the well-funded cybersecurity sector isn’t protected from valuation drops. Industry experts who spoke with Chris about the outlook for cyber startups in 2023 say they expect fundraising and valuations will continue to soften. That’s despite 2022 easily being the second-best on record for VC funding to cyber companies.

4) Fintech will remain hot, despite the crypto crash: Fintech was the largest recipient of venture dollars in 2022, despite an overall drop in VC funding this year and despite high-profile crypto companies going bust. Next year will likely see continued investment in fintech companies, particularly in the B2B payments and business services space, though we should expect to see a pullback in crypto funding in the wake of FTX’s collapse, Senior Data Editor Gené Teare reports.

5) Investors may be losing their appetite for plant-based meat: Investment into plant-based meat startups has come to a standstill, Keerthi Vedantam reports, noting that funding into the sector fell from almost $2 billion in 2021 to around $800 million this year. The challenges are likely to continue next year as startups try to find a way to deliver plant-based meat products at a reasonable price to consumers, who mostly are not vegan or vegetarian. Still, the alternative meat industry did end the year on a good note, with the FDA in November approving  California-based Upside Foods’ lab-grown chicken as safe for human consumption.

6) Biotech offers a rare bright spot: One area that could see continued investment even during a downturn? Biotech, specifically those companies involved with the so-called “omics” — think genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics. That’s because, as Keerthi notes, “many of these startups can turn a profit long before they actually make and sell a drug, simply by licensing out their platform to other biotech companies and employing a fee-for-service model.”

7) Novelty is in, copycats are out: Expect to see fewer startups position themselves as the “Uber of X” or the “Shopify of Y” next year, contributing reporter Joanna Glasner writes. While during times of easy money, VCs tended to glom on to follow-on startups riding a hot trend, that era is likely now over. Instead, “startup investors will be looking for novelty in the companies they back,” Joanna predicts. “Out with the me-too business plans. In with those quirky or differentiated enough to stand on their own.” And what are some of those startups? She offers a few picks, from bee startups to a defense tech unicorn.

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But what goes up must come down (check out our layoff tracker for evidence of that), and 2023 is already showing nervous signs that venture funding hasn’t hit the floor yet.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Will 2023 be the comeback year for IPOs? What will it take for the public market to thaw? Here are the Crunchbase News staff’s top picks for the companies we think could go public next year. 

And if some of these sound familiar, it’s because they are: In our 2022 edition of this list, we predicted many of these might go public this year. Little did we know that the IPO markets would stall. So here we are again, offering up some thoughts on who might make public debuts, if and when IPOs start happening again.

Enterprise tech and cybersecurity

Arctic Wolf: It wasn’t that long ago when Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Arctic Wolf seemed IPO bound. The company raised $150 million in a Series F in July 2021, taking its valuation from $1.3 billion to $4.3 billion. At that time, then-CEO Brian NeSmith said an IPO was likely the next logical move. Then the market changed drastically, and in October the managed security provider raised $401 million in convertible notes led by existing investor Owl Rock. Convertible notes work like a short-term loan, but these notes are repaid to the investor at a later point in equity — i.e. after an IPO — typically at a discount. The managed security space can support large players and Arctic Wolf has grown large since being founded in 2012. Perhaps those notes turn to equity in 2023.

Databricks: Everyone has been on Databricks for a while. As recently as February, CEO Ali Ghodsi talked about going public, but offered no timeline. The market has only grown colder for IPOs since then, but this is a company that ended 2021 with more than $800 million in annual recurring revenue. It’s big and growing. It also hit a post-money valuation of $38 billion after raising a $1.6 billion Series H led by Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global in August 2021. And that big Series H came just seven months after the company raised $1 billion at a $28 billion valuation. That valuation may be what is keeping the San Francisco-based company from going public. Nevertheless, Databricks — which creates tools and products to help companies view both structured and unstructured data in a single location — could look to 2023 to finally offer employees and investors the liquidity they’ve waited for.

Flexport: The supply chain is still top of mind, so maybe some company will ride that to the public market. San Francisco-based Flexport, which was on our IPO list last year, locked up a $935 million Series E in February led by Andreessen Horowitz and MSD Partners at an $8 billion valuation. The global freight forwarder and logistics platform moved nearly $19 billion in merchandise across 112 countries in 2021, even as global supply chains suffered from multiple disruptions. In total, the startup has already raised more than $2 billion, according to Crunchbase data. Despite a down VC market this year, logistic and supply chain startups still were able to raise cash from private investors. Maybe they can do the same with public ones?

— Chris Metinko

Fintech and banking

Stripe: The most obvious and one of the most successful fintech startups to add to this list is online payments company Stripe, which is co-headquartered in London and Dublin. It is the fifth most valued startup on the The Crunchbase Unicorn Board, and was most recently valued in a 2021 financing at $95 billion. Founded by brothers Patrick Collison, its CEO, and John Collison, its president, Stripe is now 12 years old and has raised more than $2 billion in funding. The company processed $640 billion in payments in 2021 up 60% from the prior year. It was said to have $12 billion in revenue in 2021 according to Forbes. As a result of the market correction, the company lowered its internal valuation in 2022 to $74 billion. The company filed its intention to go public in July 2021 but has not yet set a date. It cut around 1,100 jobs, or 14% of its workforce, earlier this year.

Revolut: London-based Revolut is the second most valuable European fintech, valued at $33 billion as of July 2021. The company is 7 years old and has raised $1.7 billion in funding. Founded by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, Revolut took off as it made transferring money in different currencies easy for those who work or travel in multiple countries. Revolut has not initiated layoffs in 2022 — in fact, it has kept hiring. The company announced revenueof 261 million pounds in 2020 but has not posted revenue for 2021. Revolut has 25 million retail customers and applied for a banking license in the U.K. in 2021. 

Plaid: San Francisco-based Plaid connects user bank accounts to fintech apps. The company was founded nine years ago by Zachary Perret, its CEO, and William Hockey, a board member. It was last valued in Series D funding in August 2021 at $13.4 billion and has raised $734 million over time. Plaid’s revenue in 2020 was said to be around $170 million in an article by Forbes. Visa planned to purchase the company in 2020 for $5 billion, which was halted by regulators the following year. In December 2022, Plaid laid off 20% of its staff, or around 260 employees, as Peret said that slower than expected growth after the pandemic meant that Plaid’s “pace of cost growth outstripped our pace of revenue growth.” On the other hand, Peret also said that the number of customers Plaid serves has grown 50% in the past year. 

— Gené Teare

Consumer platforms and services

Instacart: Instacart is kind of the startup equivalent of the “always a bridesmaid never a bride” cliche. It’s always high on lists of likely public market entrants, but has never actually consummated an IPO. Well, we think 2023 will be the year. (Yes, we said that last year too, but cut us some slack.) An offering started looking even more likely after the company confirmed in May that it filed a confidential draft registration with U.S. securities regulators, with a debut currently expected to come next year. The filing followed a steep write-down, as Instacart cut its valuation in March from $39 billion to $24 billion.

Guild Education: Denver-based Guild was also on our list last year, but all told, it still looks like a strong IPO candidate. The Denver-based company, which offers a platform for extending employer-covered education and upskilling to workers, has raised over $640 million to date, including $265 million in a June Series F round. It’s particularly noteworthy that the company secured a big round in a period in which overall edtech funding has been declining, indicating investors see a lot to like in the business model.

Faire: If you’ve been around long enough and raised enough money, inevitably investors will be looking for a return. This notion applies quite succinctly to Faire, an online marketplace for independent retailers and brands that has raised $1.7 billion since 2017, per Crunchbase data. The company’s business model could also see some favorable headwinds as consumers return to local stores, which stock from its suppliers, after a pandemic-driven shift to predominantly online shopping.

TripActions: TripActions is another heavily funded company that’s often bandied about as a likely IPO candidate. The 7-year-old, Palo Alto-headquartered company provides corporate cards and expense management tools, with a focus on business travel. Startup investors certainly seem to like the brand. The company pulled in $300 million in an October Series G round at a post-money valuation of $9.2 million. TripActions also is already making progress on the IPO path — it filed confidential paperwork for an offering with the SEC, per a September report.

— Joanna Glasner

Life sciences, agtech and foodtech

Lyra Health: We’re still waiting for Lyra — or maybe Headspace Health or some other teletherapy company — to go public. A first-mover teletherapy startup that took the direct-to-employer route in 2016, Lyra Health has worked with companies including Palantir, Zoom and Amgen to provide teletherapy long before insurance companies at-large embraced the practice. At the beginning of this year the startup raised $235 million in Series G funding, upping its valuation to $5.58 billion. Lyra held back during the 2021 IPO mad rush its competitor Talkspace participated in, but it’s more than ready for the public markets.

Plenty: We consider vertical farming and urban farming a solid bet next year. Thin-margin grocery stores are being hit hard by logistics and supply issues, so the idea of a produce farm located close to consumers seems pretty ideal. Vertical farming startup Plenty rang in 2022 with $400 million in Series E funding, almost half of all the funding the company has raised since it got started in 2014. Plenty began building out a vertical farming “campus” in Virginia, where it would grow strawberries for the large farming conglomerate Driscoll’s. There aren’t that many agriculture startups that went public — AeroFarms almost made the leap via SPAC in 2021 until funding closed up — but Plenty seems ripe to go public.

Tempus: Armed with $1.3 billion in funding over nine funding rounds, precision medicine startup Tempus is easily one of the most intriguing companies to come out of the pandemic. Its technology platform is different from most biotech upstarts that focus on developing molecules. Tempus scooped up two clinical trial-related startups and has its hand in multiple parts of the drug-making lifespan — something we don’t see outside of giant pharma companies such as Amgen or Merck. Tempus raised $275 million in debt financing in October for its ability to leverage AI in drug discovery and genomic sequencing. 

— Keerthi Vedantam

Outside the box

Canva: Design-software maker Canva has reeled in more than $572 million in funding and a $40 billion valuation from venture investors. The Australia-based company is known for its design software for nondesigners, but new tools rolled out this year show its ambitions are even bigger. It recently launched an AI writing tool that promises to help automate marketing copywriting, around the same time that OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool set the tech world abuzz. Investors seem to be increasingly drawn to technology that automates even the most creative of fields, and Canva is at the head of the pack in that group. At least one of Canva’s biggest investors is feeling more bullish on the company again: Franklin Templeton increased the value of its stake in Canva last month, after the design softwaremaker was previously hit by a series of writedowns.

ICON: We thought it’d be fun to include a name that doesn’t generally grace the likely IPO lists, and that’s where ICON comes in. The Austin-based construction technology company, known for its iconic 3D-printed homes, has raised more than $450 million in venture funding in the past five years. It’s the kind of branded, consumer-facing technology company that might benefit from the higher public profile that comes with a listing on a major exchange.

 — Marlize van Romburgh and Joanna Glasner

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We also learned that many of our readers are bracing for a recession in 2023, and that if you want to evaporate a whole pile of money, consider investing in a tech startup going public via a SPAC.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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January

• 1/18 — Not so fast, FTC says: Microsoft announces plans to acquire gaming giant Activision Blizzard, sparking a battle with Federal Trade Commission regulators who say the deal would allow Microsoft, which owns the Xbox gaming console, to suppress competition.  

• 1/25 — So young, so much money: Nearly 600 new unicorns were minted in 2021, and about 18% of them were early stage. Those glossy startups’ early rounds totaled almost $26 billion, with the total valuations of early-stage unicorns hitting $218 billion.   

February

• 2/7 — Supply chain, agtech, Web3 funding off to a strong start: 2022 has barely begun, and investors have already delivered nearly $1.9 billion in venture funding to supply chain management companies. Agtech investment also flourishes with more than $1 billion of venture funding plowed into the sector so far in the year. And Web3 funding heats up with two raises totaling $650 million in 24 hours.

• 2/24 — Russia invades Ukraine, sparking global unrest: Russia launches an unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, sending ripple effects throughout a world economy already on edge after two years of pandemic and supply chain woes. We look at Ukraine’s small but growing startup sector and how its business community stays resilient in the chaos of war, the ripple effects on the semiconductor industry, and how one company supports its Ukrainian employees. One silver lining for VC investors is the cybersecurity sector: Even as the markets tumbled, share prices have risen for several publicly traded cyber stocks. 

March

• 3/5 — Funding slowdown arrives: In a sign of things to come, global venture funding comes in at $160 billion in the first quarter of 2022, marking the first time in a year when startup capital fell quarter over quarter.

• 3/17 — Fed begins rate hikes: In a bid to tame inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve raises its federal funds benchmark rate by 25 basis points, to the range of 0.25% to 0.50% — marking the first time since 2018 that the central bank has increased rates. The rate hike is just the first of many in 2022 as the Fed tries to pump the brakes on consumer prices.

• 3/18 — SoftBank dumps Cruise: News breaks that SoftBank Vision Fund will not honor its previous commitment of $1.35 billion in funding to Cruise, now that the startup is operating fully driverless cars. It’s one of the first signs of SoftBank’s growing problems and poor investment strategy and a declining venture market.

• 3/29 — Hey, we care about the environment: Startups in the sustainable packaging space are pulling in hundreds of millions in venture funding, and industry insiders see plenty of room for growth ahead.

• 3/31 — Women’s network joins unicorn club: Chief, a private network for female leaders, raises a $100 million Series B at a $1.1 billion valuation.

April

• Tech layoffs mount: Tech layoffs spike in April with around 6,600 employees getting cut from the U.S. tech workforce.

• 4/11 — An epic raise: Epic Games, the company behind the wildly popular Fortnite video game series, raises $2 billion from Sony and Kirkbi. 

• 4/14 — Musk makes a bid for the blue bird: A few weeks after disclosing that he’d amassed a 9.2% stake in Twitter, Elon Musk offers to buy the social platform outright for $44 billion — a significant premium for the San Francisco-based company. But before the deal finally closes, tune in for months of litigation and drama.

• 4/28 — EV charging startups spark VC interest: Scores of companies in the EV charging space are raising funding, much of it in seed and early stage. But can the sector charge up equally powerful exits?

May

• 5/12 — SoftBank signals big losses: SoftBank — an investor in tech giants like Didi and Uber — announces a loss of $27.7 billion on investments in its Vision Fund for its just-ended fiscal year and tells investors there will be a “stricter selection of investments” for the new year.

• 5/25 — Sequoia sounds the alarm: Just about two weeks after SoftBank’s warnings of belt tightening, venture giant Sequoia Capital — known for investments in tech titans such as Apple, Uber and Google — shares a 52-slide presentation with 250 founders on May 16 over Zoom that warns of a “crucible moment” of uncertainty for the venture market due to inflation, the markets and geopolitical issues. The presentation is another sign of unrest in the venture market and reminiscent of Sequoia’s “R.I.P. Good Times” in 2008.

• 5/31 — Five thriving seed crops: Even as late-stage funding falls, investors are backing an abundant variety of seed-stage startups this year. Fertile sectors include the metaverse, brain and neurotech, fitness, NFTs, and alternative meats.

June

• VC takes another turn for the worst: Those looking for better news at the end of the second quarter were sadly disappointed: Global funding slowed dramatically in Q2 2022 as investors further shied away from later-stage funding bets.

• 6/13 — SpaceX fuels up with $1.7B: Elon Musk’s “other company,” SpaceX, raises $1.68 billion in equity financing from a large group of investors. Though the raise marks one of the largest of the year, it’s a tad under the $1.72 billion the rocket maker was reportedly seeking.

• 6/24 — SCOTUS sets off shockwaves:  The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that codified the right to an abortion in the U.S. After it was overturned, several online pharmacy and health startups began working toward providing abortions. 

July

• 7/11 — Klarna valuation plummets: Buy now, pay later startup Klarna raises $800 million in new funding in a deal that chops its valuation by 85% to $6.7 billion. The valuation drop is a sign of things to come, as other unicorns will also see their values decline, sometimes significantly, as the year wears on.

• 7/28 — Dry powder piles up: Firms keep announcing monster new commitments to funds even as venture investment drops. Already this year, firms have publicly announced nearly $144 billion in funds being raised, a number that nearly matches 2021’s blockbuster amount.

August

• 8/16 — Biden signs massive tax-and-spend bill: President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act into law, cementing a massive piece of legislation that earmarks almost $400 billion for green energy and health care, while raising tax rates on corporations and the wealthy. Despite its name, many economists say the legislation is unlikely to greatly reduce consumer prices — and may actually spur further inflation over the next few years. Even so, Wall Street reacts largely positively to the bill.  

• 8/31 — Hello there, extension rounds: In a tepid market, extension rounds are on the uptick. It’s a viable option for some startups that raised at a high valuation in 2021 but aren’t meeting milestones to raise the next funding stage.

September

• VC funding drops dramatically: Venture funding in Q3 totals $81 billion — down by 53% year over year — removing any doubt that 2022 will look very different from 2021. 

• 9/15 — Adobe pulls out its pocketbook: Adobe announces its intent to acquire Figma for $20 billion — half in stock and half in cash. Should the acquisition be approved, it will be the largest acquisition of a private technology company to date. The largest technology acquisition prior to this announcement was Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion. And the third largest is Walmart’s purchase of Flipkart in 2018 for $16 billion. 

• 9/27 — Dermo funding more than skin deep: Investment in cosmetic dermatology — treating acne, brittle hair and wrinkles — has been on the rise in India. Generic drugmaker Torrent Pharmaceuticals sets up to acquire dermatology startup Curatio Healthcare for $245 million.

October

• 10/12 — The journey continues: TripActions pulls in $300 million in an October Series G round at a post-money valuation of $9.2 million. The corporate travel booking platform earlier filed confidential paperwork for an IPO with the SEC.

• 10/31 — The wheels come off Argo AI: Pittsburgh-based self-driving technologies company Argo AI closes down as it’s unable to raise new funds. Primarily backed by Ford and VW, the company was last valued at $12.4 billion in July 2021 in a funding and partnership with Lyft. 

November

• 11/6 — Binance says bye to FTT: Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweets that Binance — the largest exchange by volume — will sell its holdings of FTX’s native token, FTT. 

• 11/09 — Meta makes mega layoffs: Meta begins laying off around 11,000 employees, making it the largest layoff move in tech in 2022. Not far behind is Amazon, which cuts 10,000 jobs.

• 11/11 — FTX files for bankruptcy: After the collapse of the FTT token and a rush on withdrawals, FTX, Alameda Research and all their affiliates declare bankruptcy — with FTX showing an $8 billion shortfall. It’s a dramatic collapse when one considers just earlier in the year FTX and FTX US carried valuations of $32 billion and $8 billion, respectively, before everything fell apart.

• 11/16 — FDA OKs lab meat: The Food and Drug Administration says lab-grown meat is safe to eat, a major win for cultivated meat startups, which have gobbled up nearly $700 million in VC funding this year.

• 11/18 — Holmes gets prison time: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her blood-testing startup, which prosecutors described as an elaborate, years-long fraud.

• 11/28 — Musk-Twitter deal closes: Elon Musk officially — and reluctantly — buys Twitter, just a day before a trial in Delaware Chancery Court is set to start in which the company aimed to force him to go through on his offer. Musk soon begins firing Twitter’s top executives and making deep cuts to its workforce, changes that in turn set off an advertiser revolt.

• 11/30 — ChatGPT says “hello, world”: OpenAI releases ChatGPT, its AI-powered chatbot, to the wider world, setting the tech world abuzz and renewing interest in artificial intelligence’s capabilities. While the robots aren’t (yet) taking our jobs, they are getting lots of funding from investors.

December

• Layoffs near 100K: By early December, at least 90,000 U.S. tech workers have lost their jobs this year. 

• 12/2 — Anduril locks in $1.5B raise: Defense tech startup Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey, raises nearly $1.5 billion in a Series E round that values it at $8.5 billion. The company is one of the few VC-backed startups that do business with the Pentagon.

• 12/7 — Balwani gets 13 years: Elizabeth Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and former Theranos executive Sunny Balwani is sentenced to 13 years in prison for his involvement in the company.

• 12/12 — SBF arrested: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is arrested in the Bahamas and charged with eight criminal counts. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler accuses Bankman-Fried of having “built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto.”

• 12/14 — Fed hikes rate again: The Federal Reserve hikes the federal funds rate to between 4.25% and 4.5% in its final 2022 rate increase, though the central bank signals it will continue to raise rates into 2023 as it struggles to tame inflation.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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