Contact: Brenon Daly
Just as we’ve hit the home stretch for the current US election cycle, we’ve also entered crunch time for the otherwise sluggish tech IPO market. Any company that still plans to debut in 2017 will need to sprint to beat the holidays, which tend to stall offerings ahead of the turn of the calendar. Whether any startups actually make it to Wall Street depends at least in part on the events in Washington DC. (We have already noted that a recent survey from 451 Research’s ChangeWave service showed the Clinton vs. Trump circus has slowed consumers’ discretionary spending plans.)
In that way, political elections and tech offerings are somewhat intertwined. Further, there are some distinct similarities between the two events. Both involve candidates going out and seeing how popular they are with the public. Both also involve time-consuming and expensive journeys that wind toward a goal of serving the public at some level. And finally, both can bring long, rewarding stays in the public eye – alternatively, they can result in embarrassingly revealing and disconcertingly short stays. It all depends on how they serve their constituencies, whether voters or investors.
Not wishing to drag out the metaphor any longer – and certainly not wishing to spend any more attention on this dismal and depressing election cycle – we’ll shift our focus solely to the tech IPO market. We’ve already seen a half-dozen enterprise tech vendors make it public this year, and while one or two startups may add to that total, most are likely to look to join the ‘Class of 2017.’ Heading into next year, the outlook for tech IPOs appears strong. Slightly more than half of the respondents to the most recent M&A Leaders’ Survey from 451 Research and Morrison & Foerster predicted an increase in the number of tech offerings from now through next spring. That was the survey’s most bullish forecast for IPOs in two years.
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