Slide 24 from U.S. Tech Funding — What’s Going On? | Andreessen Horowitz mentions something I’ve seen brought up previously:
Specifically:
As you get to $40+ million rounds, these are effectively “quasi-IPOs.”
There seems to be a significant shift in what historically would have been IPO level money into pre-IPO companies.
Fred Wilson’s comments about The Coming Change In Monetary Policy has me thinking this is related to low interest rates:
valuation multiples are inversely correlated to interest rates. When rates rise, valuation multiples fall.
As rates start going back up the calculus around “quasi-IPOs” will likely change as well.