Markets & Investing
IPO Spree: Unicorn WeWork To Launch $3bn Public Offering Albeit Other Startups Failing To Reach Their Potential
16 Aug 2019
WeWork has revealed its prospectus for a $3bn-$4bn initial public offering that would see the office-space provider become the latest unicorn to go public. The property group is currently operating with heavy losses and would follow the likes of Uber and Lyft to IPO this year.
In the last 20 years, UK-based entrepreneurs have built 72 companies, including 13 in the past year, that have exceeded a valuation of US$1billion. This is compared with 29 in Germany, Britain’s closest European rival, and India with 26, according to research for the government’s digital economy council published in June. But with the shadow’s of Uber’s IPO still looming over many Unicorns, what is the future for this route of growth finance?
NextHash, a Digital Security Offering exchange for potential Unicorns, has today released brand new research, polling over 2000 citizens across the UK and their attitudes towards high growth startup funding.
- A quarter of Brits – 24% – agree that seeing Unicorns and their IPOs fail or not fulfil their potential, such as Uber, has made investing into Initial Public Offerings unpalatable to them
- A third – 33% – of Brits want more flexible ways to invest into businesses than stocks, shares or venture capital investment
- Three in 10 Brits – 28%- would consider using Digital Security Offerings if there was an unbiased, trustworthy source of information about them
- One in five British investors – 21% – feel gold and real-estate does not give them the rapid return on investment that they can get from high-growth, internationally-facing companies
- More than two-thirds of British investors – 68% – would only trade or invest where there is security or protection against fraud for their investment
The Founder and President of NextHash, Ana Bencic, has commented on the findings of the study: “WeWork’s IPO has been the cause of many conversations in the last few weeks and the launch of their prospectus with a $47bn valuation may raise some eyebrows, especially as many investors have seen the likes of Uber, Lyft, and Dropbox fail to live up to their initial valuations once they went public. Nexthash’s research has shown that investor sentiment is moving away from unicorn IPOs and stocks and shares, meaning that those looking to invest in high growth startup and scaleups will turn to other platforms and solutions.”
According to Ana Bencic, Blockchain investment platforms can help make global growth finance for scaling technology businesses more transparent and easy to access. Both individual and institutional traders will be able to engage more with blockchain technology-backed trading, where the businesses are backed by a Digital Security Offering and there exists a greater potential to make rapid returns on their investments than the traditional routes.
“As this is adopted into the mainstream, it will revolutionise the way companies in Britain will access scale-up finance, how investors will access these businesses, and how illiquid shares can be traded into liquid capital in ways never imagined before. As Britain prepares for Brexit and WeWork prepares to launch its own IPO, new forms of investment could be crucial for these scaling businesses as well as global investors who want to maintain access to the UK marketplace”, Bencic concluded.
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