A series of layoffs at online mortgage lender last year left thousands of former staffers scrambling to find a job. But not . He was thinking term sheets.听

Sahai, a 27-year-old Colorado native, joined Better in 2018 as a loan consultant, working his way into a post as legal analyst a year later. Alongside his job, Sahai was studying for a law degree at

The combination of work and studies helped germinate the idea that culminated in his legal tech startup, , when Sahai had trouble finding software geared for managing workflow at a busy and growing in-house legal department.听

After getting laid off from Better in August, Sahai, now a law school grad, had time to devote to startup building. In subsequent months, he and his team developed an initial product they鈥檙e pitching to in-house legal teams as a tool to streamline workflow and help manage incoming requests, documents and internal communications.

Gaining momentum

Sahai said momentum picked up in December, when the startup got initial backing from seed and early-stage investor .

鈥淭hat started accelerating things,鈥� he said, noting that shortly afterward, co-founder and CTO Ilia Rogov, also a former Better employee, came on board. The company also landed its first enterprise client, along with some smaller customers.

Composure is now going out for a pre-seed round. There鈥檚 no hard target at the moment, but Sahai said comps for similar rounds usually fall in the $1 million to $3 million range. So far, the startup has raised a little over $300,000 from Day One and angel investors.

From suing to SaaS

Part of what makes in-house counsel workflow appealing from a startup perspective is that it is both complex and kind of repetitive.

Day-to-day workflow, as least for a larger organization, is likely to include both inbound and outbound litigation. Unfortunately, as companies scale, Sahai noted, eventually 鈥渋t’s just a fact of life that someone鈥檚 going to sue you.鈥� (Or vice versa.)

Beyond lawsuits, there鈥檚 usually a lot of in-house work around compliance and regulatory approval. This can be a particularly large workload for companies in heavily regulated industries like finance or health care. In addition, in-house legal teams have to devote resources to overseeing intellectual property protection, internal investments, and weighing in on terms for vendor and sales negotiations.听

The idea behind Composure is to make it easier to track the tasks and documentation involved in all those myriad responsibilities, and to divvy up workload accordingly.听

Starting in a downturn

While this is not the easiest time for startups to find funding, Sahai for now sees advantages in launching a company amid a market downturn. For one, out of necessity, everyone is focused on capital efficiency. That ought to have some long-term advantages.

Customers are also tightening their belts. As a first-time founder, Sahai said in the past year he鈥檚 realized how much resilience is required to keep a nascent venture afloat. Most queries end in rejection, with only the outliers culminating in a 鈥測es.鈥澨� He compares the relentless forward push to football:

鈥淵ou鈥檙e punting a lot. 鈥� And then, once in a while, you find a gap and you run it down for a touchdown,鈥� he said.

Illustration:

Last updated September 18, 2019.

• IPO date: September 13, 2019
• IPO price: $15 per share
• IPO valuation: $4.4 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Positive.

Cloudflare finally settled on pricing its shares at $15 after previously setting ranges of $10 to $12 and then $12 to $14. Its IPO was a success, with its stock opening at $18 on its first day of trading. Things are still going strong, with its stock trading at $19.34 as of midday September 18.

• IPO date: September 12, 2019
• IPO price: $23 per share
• IPO valuation: $8.9 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Down.

DIY teeth straightening company SmileDirectClub set its IPO price at $23, above the price range of $19 to $22 the company had intended. But pricing high has its consequences, and nearly a week after beginning trading on the public markets, SmileDirectClub’s stock still hasn’t hit $23. Its shares closed at $16.67 on its first day of trading, and is at $19.07 as of midday September 17.

• IPO date: August 15, 2019
• IPO price: $9.50 per share
• IPO valuation: $2.1 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Modestly positive.

Chinese financial services and tech company 9F priced at the high end of its range of $7.50 to $9.50 per share. We wrote about the company’s financials right before it went public, and since hitting the Nasdaq, 9F’s stock price has risen a bit to $11.29, as of midday Aug. 28.

• IPO date: August 8, 2019
• IPO price: $14 per share
• IPO valuation: $447 million
• Initial post-IPO arc: Slow start, but good short-term returns.

InMode’s stock stayed relatively flat around $14 for about a week after it began trading on the Nasdaq. But its stock saw a jump around Aug. 14 and was trading at $21.60 as of midday Aug. 28.

• IPO date: Juy 31, 2019
• IPO price: $16 per share
• IPO valuation: $4.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Unknown.

Dynatrace above its raised $13 to $15 per-share IPO price range after initially targeting an $11 to $13 range. How it will fare isn’t clear, though early signals look promising. The company is just set to trade. We’ll have more the next time we update this post.

• IPO date: July 24, 2019
• IPO price: $26 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.3 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Sharply higher.

小蓝视频色情网页版 News covered Health Catalyst when it raised $100 million earlier this year, but not during its IPO run. We can only do so much.

What matters is that the company which focuses on health data was one more feather in the cap of healthtech. Since going public at $26 per share, Health Catalyst’s equity has risen to more than $40 per share. It’s been a fantastic year for health-focused tech companies to go public.

• IPO date: July 25, 2019
• IPO price: $28 per share
• IPO valuation: $2.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Sharply higher.

Yet another 2019 healthtech offering, we described the company’s financials as having “quick revenue growth” along with “growing losses” when we first saw the figures.

Whatever we called the numbers, investors like them. And after a period of time prepping its launch, Livongo’s equity has traded higher as a public company. It’s worth about $44 per share as we write to you. That’s a good margin higher than its IPO price of $28.

• IPO date: July 18, 2019
• IPO price: $21 per share
• IPO valuation: $2.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Sharply higher.

惭别诲补濒濒颈补,听not Medallica as we kept typing, has landed on its feet in the public markets. After going public in mid-July for $21 per share, equity in Medallia rose in value to about $40 as I update this post to include the company’s results. That’s a nice post-IPO appreciation.

A customer experience venture, Medallia , making this IPO somewhat important from a venture-returns perspective. Sequoia was a key backer of the company while private.

We covered its S-1 debut, its pricing here and here, and its initial, strong results.

• IPO date: July 8, 2019
• IPO price: $17 per share
• IPO valuation: $600 million
• Initial post-IPO arc: Up.

Phreesia’s modestly-sized healthtech IPO (the company provides check-in services on tables for medial settings) wasn’t a big deal in Silicon Valley. But that doesn’t mean that the company wasn’t interesting enough for us to track. You can check our notes on the company here, and here.

What Phreesia’s IPO details is a market hungry for growth; even smaller offerings can find a warm reception in 2019. Phreesia is worth $10 more per share today compared to its IPO price. Not bad.

• IPO date: July 7, 2019
• IPO price: $11.50 per share
• IPO valuation: $3.8 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Down.

We were amped for DouYu’s IPO. After all, a similar offering in 2018 from Huya, another China-based esports company, had done well. Whatever magic Huya had, however, DouYu did not receive the same.

Indeed, the company’s value has fallen since its debut, an offering that priced at the bottom of the company’s $11.50 to $14 per-share price range. Bottom, and then lower. Not a great way to start life as a public company.

• IPO date: June 28, 2019
• IPO price: $20 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.7 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Up.

The RealReal is currently worth $26.23, far above its $20 per-share IPO price. Given that the firm had initially targeted a $17 to $19 per-share IPO price, it’s good news all the way down. For more, head here and here.

• IPO date: June 27, 2019
• IPO price: $13 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Change started life above its IPO price, but is still worth less than what it had initially hoped to be when it first gave pricing hints.

With in private capital attached to Change before it went public, the company had big shoes to fill. However the firm’s $13 per-share IPO price was far below its proposed 4160 to $19 per-share range. As such, yes, the firm is up from $13, but down from where it had hoped to price. At least the firm seems to have been priced fairly in its debut.

• IPO date: June 26, 2019
• IPO price: $12 per share
• IPO valuation:
• Initial post-IPO arc: Down.

In post-IPO coverage, Cambium Networks managed to scare up the following headline: “” Damn.

Now worth just $9.30, this is a rare 2019 IPO letdown.

• IPO date: June 20, 2019
• Reference price: $26 per share
• IPO valuation:
• Initial post-IPO arc: Slack started high, and has kept altitude between it and its reference price.

Slack, have you heard of it? Did you know that the workplace productivity company pursued a direct listing instead of a traditional IPO? I bet have heard of it, and did know the rest.

Still, Slack fits our model and thus joins our list. The company is now richly valued, and public. Take that, direct listing haters.

• IPO date: June 14, 2019
• IPO price: $22 per share
• IPO valuation: $8.8 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Sharply higher, rendering all pets.com jokes moot. For now.

Sure, Chewy doesn’t make money. Sure, it has negative historical precedent. But none of that mattered when the company went public. Now worth $34.21, Chewy is yet another strong debut in 2019.

Given that the firm was previously acquired for $3.4 billion, its new worth is a treat to backers. And, if you got in at the IPO price (I doubt that you did), you are doing well.

• IPO date: June 13, 2019
• IPO price: $21 per share
• IPO valuation: $800 million
• Initial post-IPO arc: Sharoly higher, followed by some steam-blowing-off.

If you didn’t expect Fiverr to go public at all, that it’s done well since debuting must be quite the trip. The gig workplace company is worth $27.30 today, sharply above its IPO price. And when you look back at its share price chart, the firm was worth more than $30 not too long ago.

Not bad for a company you mostly remember for its odd advertising.

• IPO date: June 12, 2019
• IPO price: $34 per share
• IPO valuation: $6.6 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Way, way, way up.

We wrote a bit about CrowdStrike on its road to going public. Here’s our first piece after it filed, and here’s some more, some more, and more.

CrowdStrike had a good IPO, raised a lot of money, and has since grown in value. But it’s that final point that is driving controversy. Indeed, some VCs are complaining that many companies are going out underpriced, effectively leaving money on the table. Yes, we’ve had this argument before. No, it won’t ever stop.

• IPO date: May 16, 2019
• IPO price: $17 per share
• IPO valuation: $5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Akin to pouring hot coffee on your lap, this bad boy jumped when it hit the market.

Let May 16th last in our memory as the day that proved just how open the IPO window was in 2019. The very same IPO window that Uber and Lyft tripped while crossing.

Luckin at its IPO was a company with shocking losses, a model that was far, far from proven, and more. And its shares ran sharply higher in its first day of trading. Why? Growth, of course. Luckin has听lots of it, and the public market loved it. Uber had all but none in quarters leading up to its own IPO, and it showed when the results were tabulated.

Of course, Luckin has a lot to prove. But at least its start on the American markets was solid.

• IPO date: May 16, 2019
• IPO price: $16 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Huge first day, lots of bang for this quiet-ish SaaS-y CDN.

In the shuddering wake of the Uber IPO, the Fastly debut managed to light up the markets, shooting higher in its first day of trading. Even a weak market couldn’t slow the firm down.

So, our question regarding how to price the company was answered twice. First, when Fastly priced at the top of its range, and, second, when the market decided that it was worth quite a bit more than that. Fastly, welcome to the public markets. (We also caught up with its founder on IPO day, our notes from which can be found here.)

听

• IPO date: May 10, 2019
• IPO price: $45 per share
• IPO valuation: $82.4 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Down, and then further down.

The Uber IPO was a massive event in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The ensuing selloff made dents on both coasts, as shares of Uber slipped after their IPO during their initial trading session. The following session they fell even further.

Uber’s declines are a setback for the firm, yes, but also ding the idea that losses are pretty much ok so long as a company can appoint itself in the garb of a growth company. Uber’s combined slowing growth and persistent losses were too much for public investors to agree to at its IPO price.

Lyft fell during the same period, repricing a large chunk of the global ride-hailing market.

• IPO date: May 2, 2019
• IPO price: $25 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.5 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: To infinity, and beyond!

The Beyond Meat IPO was a smashing early success. The post-meat firm quickly tripled its value, making its sector hotter than a vegan burger on a grill. However, as we wrote previously, the firm is trading dangerously high above its fundamentals?

Beyond Meat is currently worth $4.0 billion, a slight uptick from its first-day performance. That gives it a 227.6x multiple on听. That figure is slightly exaggerated by the fact that the company has low gross margins (about 20 percent in 2018), making its gross profit multiple more dramatic than you might presume from a flat revenue multiple.

So expect this one to grow like hell, and keep its valuation, or see it repriced to something a bit saner. Either way, a big win for the meatless shop. (And its sector!)

• IPO date: May 3, 2019
• IPO price: $11 per share
• IPO valuation: $2.4 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Up from bottom-level pricing, but not enough to make headlines.

This IPO was a bit quiet in terms of U.S. media attention, but it was the successful flotation of another China-based unicorn on the domestic markets. More from 小蓝视频色情网页版 News here.

• IPO date: April 18, 2019
• IPO price: $19 per share
• IPO valuation: $10 billion (CNBC figure)
• Initial post-IPO arc: Big and good.

The Pinterest IPO pricing was somewhat of a letdown for folks hoping that it would price听up from its final private price. But then Pinterest’s stock went ahead and climbed. So now it’s worth more. Indeed, as I write this, it’s worth over $15 billion. So听there,听naysayers.

Pinterest going public was the end of a very long saga, but one that closed on an up-note for the company.

• IPO date: April 18, 2019
• IPO price: $36 per share
• IPO valuation: $9.2 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: It went kaboom. In a good way.

The dark horse of 2019 IPOs, Zoom stormed the media with its epic S-1, and then kicked butt after going public. (At least initially, we cannot see the future.) Today worth around $20 billion according to Google Finance, Zoom is the breakout success story of the year thus far.

Pro tip: Make money while growing quickly, and everyone will talk about you.

• IPO date: April 12, 2019
• IPO price: $24 per share
• IPO valuation: $1.8 billion (TradingView metric)
• Initial post-IPO arc: Strong market response.

The PagerDuty IPO put points on the board for the world of B2B SaaS, a huge startup category and the fount of many a hopeful venture return. The huge initial success of PagerDuty’s IPO underscored the market’s willingness, in April at least, to snap up SaaS shares despite pressure on companies like Box and Dropbox in the months leading up to its debut.

PagerDuty is unprofitable, but has incredibly high-value revenue (recurring, high gross margin). That fact was likely helpful during its IPO process.听

Read our look at its S-1 here, and the rest here.

• IPO date: March 29, 2019
• IPO price: $72 per share
• IPO valuation: $24 billion
• Initial post-IPO arc: Exuberance, followed by declines and a massive hangover.

The Lyft IPO marked the start of the unicorn IPO run of 2019. Beating Uber to the public market, Lyft had big growth, and towering losses to match. Its pricing run was strong, and the company priced at the top of its raised range. And then, Lyft opened up more than $10 over its IPO price.

All things looked good. But then Lyft’s stock began to drift down. Quickly falling under its IPO price, Lyft wasn’t helped by the public launch of Uber’s IPO, the expected price of which may have pressured Lyft’s stock even more. As of the time of writing, Lyft is worth only a billion dollars more than its final private price.

Read our look at its S-1 here, and the rest here.

Super League Gaming

, an esports company, went public on Feb. 26, 2019. The company, according to , sports a “proprietary cloud-based platform [which] provides amateur gamers a modernized way to connect, play and view games in real-time.” Per , in practice, that means that the company “holds local competitions for games like Minecraft and League of Legends in theaters, cafes” and other locations.

We all know by now that Twitch and esports are big deals. However, the new offering went out at $11 per share before falling under $10 during its first day’s trading. Super League Gaming raised around $25 million in its debut.

Why did its shares fall right out of the gate? The company has a slim $1.05 million in revenue during calendar 2018. That was up from just over $200,000 in 2017. However, the听company lost a staggering $20.6 million in 2018. That’s one of the worst net margins I’ve ever seen.

Super League Gaming, then, is a growth play and an early IPO. Most companies stay private when they are this unprofitable. It will be interesting to see how the market values the small esports shop moving forward.

Notes

To qualify for this list, a company must list on a United States-based exchange, must report at least $1 of revenue in the past year, and be a member of the larger tech community.

For historical coverage, check out our tally of US-listed tech IPOs from 2018.

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Vista is best known for its multi-billion dollar funds and deals, but this smaller fund is a double-down on a different model. The new fund, dubbed , is the successor to the aptly named , a smaller (around $500 million) vehicle that was as focusing on “companies too small to fit into [Vista’s] flagship funds.”

Returning to the newly-built Endeavor Fund II, that the capital pool will target firms with between $10 and $30 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue), at a price range of “$30 million and $100 million.” Recall that private equity shops do not usually invest in companies the way that venture capitalists do; Vista wants to buy whole firms, strip them of costs, change their growth curve, and then sell them, spin them out, or take them public.

It’s a ; the firm’s leader Robert Smith has even for how he views the market for software companies: “Software companies taste like chicken […] They鈥檙e selling different products, but 80% of what they do is pretty much the same.”

Don’t tell your favorite startup that, but for the Austin-based Vista Equity Partners, selling software and building SaaS companies is something that can be beaten into a formula.

Comparisons

Vista’s current real fundraising effort is that it has already raised $14 billion for, sums of money that tower above its new, smaller fund. But small deals can make for good returns, and given the that private equity investors are sitting on, it’s perhaps not surprising that Vista wants to take on all stages of the tech buyout market.

Private equity, as an investing class, has taken a greater shine to growth-oriented tech companies in recent years. Traditionally focused on EBITDA (profit) multiples, software companies tend to trade for less-certain revenue multiples. Notably, despite that valuation deviation, .

How long the love-affair can last is probably predicated on the stock market staying near record highs; change the pricing of comps, and the market value of some PE holdings will dip.

For now, however, Vista is sitting pretty with a new, larger focused fund aimed at smaller companies, and a larger fund incoming with enough weight to derive its own gravity. Keep in mind that in markets, it’s always brightest right before night comes.

Illustration: .

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Last week I tried to highlight a sentiment shift in the technology world. Bullishness felt ascendant once again.

Sure, venture activity was down compared to some 2018 highs in the first quarter, but the Nasdaq was popping, big rounds were landing, and the IPO market looked hot.

Things have continued in that vein. Yesterday, for example, both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 “finished in record territory, notching all-time highs for the first time since fall and late summer,” . Given that the public markets help shape opinion in the private markets (optimism and pessimism bleed from the stock market into how private investors value companies), it’s an important moment for the firms that we cover here.

An IPO

The market warmth we just described is driving companies through the IPO gauntlet.

Yesterday we dug into the DouYu IPO filing (Remember the Huya debut?听DouYu marks another esports-focused offering.), only to discover that we’d missed a different China-based technology offering targeting the U.S. markets. Say hello to , an ecommerce company with a membership component.

According to its , this is how it works:

If that isn’t clear, the company’s model depends on using lots of IRL and digital tech to link suppliers and consumers. That’s how Amazon works, with its website, services, and distribution network powering an ecommerce stack.

Yunji tallied $1.892 billion in revenue last year (cost of 2018 revenue: $1.557 billion), leading to a slim operating loss of $14.5 million. The firm grew 92 percent from 2017 to 2018, for reference, while cutting its operating loss slightly. That’s a path to profitability.

And Yunji has done all that while not raising billions of dollars. Indeed, 小蓝视频色情网页版 has in recorded capital for the company. Some rounds that we know about don’t have listed round values, but even given that its capital thirst seems lesser than what we’ve seen from some companies.

So we’ve discussed our record and our IPO. Let’s peek at an interesting round.

A Round

A company called announced . Eightfold is a company I know a bit. I met a few of its team in San Francisco last year.

That a company with an “.ai” suffix raised a $28 million Series C is not surprising. In fact, that’s nearly the platonic ideal of a 2019 venture capital round. What makes Eightfold interesting isn’t its funding amount (though it added to , which isn’t bad at all), but rather what it’s trying to accomplish.

Eightfold wants to help big companies with what it describes as their “number one challenge,” namely “hiring and retaining top talent.” If you ask CEOs of tech companies what’s bothering them, the talent crunch is a pretty common response, so Eightfold is tackling a reasonable problem.

The economy is hot (see above), and markets are rewarding tech companies looking to reach the next level (see above), exacerbating the talent crisis. But even if there was a correction of moderate size, talent would still be tough in and around tech hubs. That puts the startup in a somewhat fun spot; unless tech is decimated in a correction, I’d hazard that Eigthfold is slightly recession-proof.

That aside, Eightfold is working in a space where there is demand, and it, putatively at least, has a solution. The combination should help it grow quickly. Sadly, the firm .

Hot Times

Taking all that together, the public markets are setting new records, tech companies of all shapes and sizes and profitability are targeting the U.S. markets, and startups looking to solve hot-market talent problems are finding new backers and fresh capital.

It’s still hot times in tech. No matter how bad things looked in December.

Illustration: .

Welcome to Q3 2018 Earnings Season, coming to you live through the prism of market uncertainty.

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Unlike other recent quarters, tech shares do not seem poised to report another strong quarter while the major indices听rise. Instead, tech may prove to be more of a mixed bag from a results perspective this cycle, and is busy reporting its performance in an unsteady stock market.

Yesterday’s action was tough. Markets were down, but tech fell even more sharply. Here’s :

“Stocks plummeted on Wednesday as a sharp drop in tech shares and worries about corporate earnings added fuel to this month’s steep pullback.

The听听dropped 608.01 points at 24,583.42 and erased all of its gains for 2018. The听 dropped 3.1 percent to 2,656.10 and also turned negative for the year. The听听fell 4.4 percent to 7,108.40鈥� entering correction territory 鈥� as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet all traded lower.”

A few things to note from that. First that the two key, non-tech American indices听have lost their gains for the year, and one is negative. And second, that the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further, entering correction territory (a 10 percent or greater decline in value). Those are big, and bad, bits of news. Especially as many private tech听companies are .

I’d wager that 2019 won’t be the year of tardy unicorn IPOs if the market keeps deteriorating.

Looking more specifically,听 was down a mile yesterday (8.6 percent). As was , its future partner (8.77 percent). was down (5.76 percent). and were off over 7 percent apiece. fell to nearly a dollar. 听lost huge chunks of value (9.4 percent).

And the Big Five (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook) lost over $183 billion in aggregate market cap at once. And this all came after we noted that SaaS and cloud stocks were under pressure.

It was hard, really, to find anyone up in regular trading. However, good job to , which rose 3.4 percent yesterday.

A Small Reprieve

There has been some good news since markets closed Wednesday afternoon.

reported a profit, sending its shares higher. smashed expectations, and despite more slowdown in percent growth at its cloud computing group, rose after reporting earnings. And this morning,听 is up like a rocket after beating expectations. (: “Shares of Twitter Inc. are soaring 13% […] after the company reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings for the third quarter, though monthly user numbers fell short of expectations.”)

But that’s a thin veneer of positivity on the hide of yesterday’s declines. It will take a lot more of all that to get things back to normal.

Top Image Credit: .

Please excuse the personal note, but I’m back online after a week of not being around. I even took a few days off of Twitter, meaning that I all but stopped being alive last week. It felt alright.

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Regardless, I am in catch-up mode this morning, and we need to get back on our IPO grind. So, without any more self-indulgence, here’s the latest regarding technology debuts:

• Domo’s valuation cut to size.听After its IPO filing flopped, hit the brakes on its valuation. Per , Domo’s gives the firm a midpoint valuation of just $511.6 million. That’s down from its last private valuation of (post-money). The company is also now shooting for a valuation that is smaller than the pile of money that it raised () as a private shop. Maybe the public markets are more efficient than we thought.
• Xiaomi’s IPO shoots for big money.听The famous Chinese tech company’s IPO may raise $6 billion in a Hong Kong debut, . The same report notes that revenue grew around 70 percent last year and that its “operating profit more than tripled to 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion)” over the same time period.
• Meituan’s IPO filing reveals epic losses, huge revenue growth.听The other epic IPO in the offing, has a different profit profile. Indeed, the company’s $5.2 billion in 2017 revenue (+161 percent ) came with a hugely expanded $2.9 billion loss. That’s up over three times its 2016 loss, per the company’s . However, the company’s reported adjusted losses are falling. So, there’s that.
• Elastic files privately.听Finally, Elastic has privately filed to go public,听. The firm will shoot for a “valuation between about $1.5 billion and $3 billion” when it goes out, a premium on its last private valuation. More on Elastic .
• The automotive three.听On the outer-edges of what counts as tech, we have these three companies. (filing) is a China-based used car auction platform that has . 听() is an online auto insurance shopping service that raised less than $40 million. And 听() is a platform that lets people rent their rides to people looking to provide them to others using Uber and Lyft. Per , these three are among next dozen or so companies to go public domestically.

Considering the current IPO pace, I’d expect more of the same until markets turn.

The IPO market’s , and the . Hell, Adaptive Insights even . The getting is good right now for tech debuts and every private investor needs liquidity. The only real question at the moment is how long the good times will last, and what will happen to companies that miss the window.

From The听:

• In a bid to bolster returns from advertising on its video and TV content, AT&T is buying digital ad platform听听in a deal reportedly valued at around $1.6 billion. New York-based AppNexus, founded in 2007, previously raised more than $320 million in venture funding.

• , the largest service booking app in China, has filed for an IPO in Hong Kong. The company, which ranks as China鈥檚听fourth largest unicorn, plans to raise at least $4 billion in the offering.

• India鈥檚听, a fast-growing online insurance provider and lending marketplace, raised over $200 million in a new financing led by SoftBank.

Pet startups fetch record sums

• People are spending more on their pets than ever, and venture investors have taken notice. Funding for pet-related startups has been surging for several years and it looks like 2018 will set a record, led by big rounds for dog-walking and pet-sitting services.

Immigrants lead about half of top-funded US startups

• Roughly half of the most heavily funded U.S. unicorns count an immigrant as a founder or chief executive, a 小蓝视频色情网页版 News analysis finds. The numbers hew pretty closely to overall stats for immigrant leadership at well-capitalized startups.

The Nasdaq is off just over a percent this morning to 6,937 and change. That’s under the notable 7,000 point threshold, and far below its 52-week (and all time) high of听7,637. Other indices have taken a beating as well.

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So how bad is the carnage, and should we care? Let’s go through some of the damage before we try to answer the second question. Bear in mind, of course, that the Nasdaq hit its records earlier this month. That’s just weeks ago.

Yesterday, the Nasdaq vomited almost 3 percent onto its own shirt, as some of tech’s hottest companies gave back ground. Here’s a narrated butcher’s report, :

Facebook shares contributed to tech’s losses, as they fell 4.9 percent after Bank of America Merrill Lynch reduced its price target on the stock听.听 […]

Tech shares were also under pressure after Reuters reported Nvidia is temporarily suspending self-driving tests. The news sent the stock down 7.8 percent. Tesla shares also fell 8.2 percent […]

Twitter fell 12 percent after short-seller听. […] Netflix declined more than 6.1 percent.

But that is only part of the picture. Here are another set of numbers to help contextualize the recent tech selloff:

• On average, the Big 5 (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) are off 13.64 percent from their 52-week highs鈥攁lso their all-time highs.
• Microsoft is off the least, falling just 8.18 percent from its all-time high. Facebook is off the most, having given back over 22 percent of its worth.
• After putting down听even more yesterday, the big five have shed around $55 billion in value today alone.
• Only two 2017 U.S.-listed technology IPOs are up today; the rest are down.
• A single 2016 U.S.-listed technology IPO is up today; the rest are down.

And we don’t have a real-time listing from the Bessemer Cloud Index, but Alteryx is down, Cloudera is down, Okta is down, Yext is down, as are Dropbox, Hubspot, Atlassian, Workday, Box, and others. So, presumably, cloud stocks are in the middle of a rough patch.

All that sums to the following: tech shares are somewhat correcting across both size and sector. However, what’s to keep in mind is that these firms are still richly valued. The Nasdaq only ripped through the 7,000 mark for the first time earlier this year (it’s March). And investors are still paying over 27 times Microsoft’s earnings, along with over 31 times Google’s (Google Finance API data). And don’t forget what Salesforce just paid for Mulesoft (a lot) and how well Dropbox just did in its public offering (super well).

So tech is still doing very well, just not as good as it was.

From The听:

• The giant funding rounds keep coming. Now it鈥檚 insurance provider听, which has raised $165 million at a reported $3 billion valuation. The five-year-old, New York-based company is co-founded by Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner.

• VC firms are scaling up too. Technology VC听听just filed to raise $1.8 billion for its latest fund, which will be its largest ever. The filing follows a string of big exits for the Silicon Valley firm, which was an early investor in Snap, MuleSoft, AppDynamics and others.

Shyp shutters delivery service

• , a service for packing and shipping items, is shutting down. Founded in 2013, Shyp had raised over $60 million in venture funding. Its CEO points to an early focus on chasing consumers rather than businesses as a key factor behind the company鈥檚 losses.

• VR camera maker听听is closing down after raising $215 million over the past decade. A large number of employees will reportedly now be joining Google.

As Alex and others have in their examination of the autonomous vehicle industry, the current state of the space is defined by , mostly between large, curious tech companies and ambitious automotive manufacturers. And those who win out may be those who strike the best cocktail of money, technological knowledge, and manufacturing capacity.

However, over the weekend, one young competitor emerged. Hailing from Silicon Valley and Beijing, Pony.ai brought in a total of $112 million dollars in Series A funding. The round was led by Shanghai-based and Beijing-based , which according to 小蓝视频色情网页版 data, .

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Investment in Pony.ai demonstrates that investors are betting that there is still room for smaller players in the game, despite major companies鈥擴ber, GM, Lyft, Google, and a hoard of others鈥攖aking interest. Chinese-based VCs are also demonstrating their ability to direct extremely large amounts of money toward the autonomous driving sector.

Pony.ai was founded in 2016 by Tiancheng Lou and James Peng. Lou was introduced to the autonomous vehicle industry while working at Baidu. Similarly, Peng found the industry while working as a programmer at Google on it鈥檚 autonomous car project pre-Waymo.

The two aim to bring their knowledge and expertise together to produce a fully functioning Level-4 vehicle, which is meant to operate autonomously in many, but not all, driving scenarios. According to of the funding event, the pair aims to place vehicles into suburban areas first, where congestion is limited, and to then build a network of connected autonomous car neighborhoods.

The company certainly aims to put its new money where its mouth is. that the startup plans to roll out cars in Guangzhou where the government has been 鈥渧ery supportive of autonomous cars.鈥� Pony.ai has also released videos showcasing their technology. We are curious to see where the money can take them, and if their independent, focused strategy will enable them to avoid the in the more mainstream autonomous vehicle industry.

From The听:

, the startup for buying food and household items in bulk, is reportedly in talks with supermarket chain Kroger about a potential $500 million acquisition. Other retailers are also expected to be making bids for the five-year-old, New York-based company, which has raised over $130 million in venture funding to date.

SoftBank invested $560 million in听, a Berlin-based online used car marketplace, in a deal that values the six-year-old company at over $3.5 billion.

, a startup founded a little over a year ago to develop autonomous driving technology, has raised $112 million in a Series A funding round led by Morningside Venture Capital and Legend Capital.

Texas deal flow slows

Deal flow in the Lone Star State saw a marked slowdown in the final quarter of 2017, with just 34 startups disclosing funding rounds. The number of dollars raised was also the lowest Q4 total in three years, 小蓝视频色情网页版 News reports.

In other news, catch up on startup funding trends for Q4 and 2017 with our recaps of 小蓝视频色情网页版 analysis of venture funding听globally听and for the听U.S. and Canada.

Although I am based in Austin now, I lived in Houston for 14 years. I experienced Hurricane Ike firsthand. I met my husband there. Got married there. Gave birth to my first child there. It will always hold a special place in my heart.

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So of course my husband and I were riveted to news reports of what was happening in our old hometown. We still had family and friends there, and it pained us to watch helplessly as the rains pummeled the city for days and inflicted all sorts of damage.

Needless to say, the impact of the storm was far worse than we 鈥� or anyone, really 鈥� expected. My heart and stomach hurt as I saw friends post pictures on social media of their homes being flooded with several feet of water. And although the hurricane was devastating, it was heartwarming that people put their differences aside and helped each other.

I also couldn鈥檛 help but observe how the use of technology played a huge role in rescue and recovery efforts. I heard story after story of people using social media, open data, creative software development, drones, and a slew of different apps to help find shelter, navigate through the heavy rains and flooded roads, and simply let people know they needed help. This wasn鈥檛 possible in hurricanes past, and it鈥檚 possible that contributed to the lower death toll compared to other storms. (As of Sept. 6, pegged the number of deaths at around 70 in Houston. For context, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina more than 1,800 lives.)

To highlight the extreme ingenuity of both our fellow humans, and what tech can do in times of crisis, I set about compiling unique ways technology came into play during Hurricane Harvey.

Websites And Textbots

A trio of Houston-area software developers quickly recognized that 911 was not equipped to handle all the calls for rescue. So Matthew Marchetti, Nate Larson, and Oliver Carter put together a critical rescue system called in under three hours. The site led to more than 7,600 active rescues, according to the developers.

The site was created in the middle of chaotic conditions, Marchetti told 小蓝视频色情网页版 News. So now the trio is trying to tweak it and apply it to what could happen as a result of Hurricane Irma.

鈥淚t all started out from a feeling of helplessness as I realized that a lot of requests for rescues were life-threatening, such as diabetics running out of insulin, or a person on a ventilator running out of power,鈥� said Marchetti, whose office, home, and car all flooded. 鈥淚 went out in boats and rescued a couple of people but still felt so helpless. For me, as a data engineer, I saw all these people asking for help and others offering it. So we made a map to match those people together and crowd source the operation.鈥�

Meanwhile, Houston-based Sketch City 鈥� which describes itself as an open, non-profit community of technology advocates and volunteers 颅 颅鈥� took crowdsourced information and built a map of emergency shelters and shelters鈥� needs for volunteers and supplies. It teamed up with Austinite Elise Graham, head of product design at to create . With the help of Code for America volunteers, Sketch City also created to connect victims with resources. Another member of the organization, Nile Dixon, developed to assist people in locating the nearest hurricane shelter to them.

Sketch City continues to help in the aftermath of the storm. The group helped create Muck Map, an app that connects homeowners to volunteers who can help clear out materials from flooded homes.

, founder of Sketch City, is realistic about the long-term impacts of Hurricane Harvey.

鈥淓verybody knows somebody who lost everything,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a long recovery.鈥�

Drones

Oklahoma City-based is a tech startup that has exclusively licensed NASA鈥檚 situational awareness and detect-and-avoid system for unmanned aircraft. Using the NASA technology, the startup developed a product called FlightHorizon. The system tracks a pilot鈥檚 drone and provides alerts, warnings, and avoidance commands to prevent collisions with other aircraft.

Last week, members of the Vigilant Aerospace team traveled to Houston to bring its system to a group of unmanned aircraft pilots. To aid the relief efforts, the company assisted in documenting the damage caused by Harvey.

鈥淲e attached a transponder to their primary drone and trained them to use the system to monitor their drone and the surrounding airspace,鈥� wrote , CEO of Vigilant Aerospace, via email. 鈥淲e believe that drones can and should play a critical role in disaster response because they provide immediate access to better data, mapping, and situational awareness in a way that is safer, faster, and less costly than other methods of assessment, including the use of manned aircraft.鈥�

Apps

, a free push-to-talk applications for [devices], drove media attention for its heavy usage during the storm. The app, which basically serves as a walkie-talkie, made it easier to get supplies and work crews routed to places in most need, noted volunteer Alisha Davis. It was also used by Louisiana鈥檚 Cajun Navy (a group of volunteers with boats) to find people who needed rescuing.

, CEO of Austin-based Zello, said there was a twenty-fold increase in new users in the Houston area during and after the storm. He estimates that there were hundreds of thousands of users alone last week.

鈥淭he fact that it鈥檚 live voice makes it ideal for communicating during a crisis,鈥� he said. 鈥淧lus, it鈥檚 reliable and can be used on a variety of devices鈥� In general, though, in large part thanks to a massive volunteer effort, it鈥檚 remarkable how little loss of life there was given the scale of the disaster.鈥�

Other apps proved useful for people during the storm. Shell International geologist was in New Orleans when Harvey hit. When he and a group of people decided to go back to Houston, they relied on the Waze navigation app to help them avoid the storm-ravaged areas.

鈥淚t was very handy, particularly when it came to smaller roads,鈥� Salem said. 鈥淚t was constantly updating as we were using the app so we could avoid road closures as much as possible.鈥�

On the way back into the city, they also used Storm in an effort to drive on drier roads.

While it still took them about 12 hours 鈥� twice as long as 鈥渘ormal鈥� 鈥� Salem believes it would have been even worse without the technology.

Open Data

The says it worked with partners at Harris County to make timely information available to the public before, during, and after the storm through a number of open data feeds. As emergencies developed around the city, Houstonians and residents of surrounding areas could use open data to track rising water levels, see which evacuation routes were still passable, and find nearby open Red Cross shelters.

As the storm subsided, public agencies provided open data about where floodwaters were receding, the status of city services, a power outage tracker, and what transit routes were resuming service. The city said it also worked with Sketch City to help put open data to immediate use, creating useful tools for residents displaced by the flood.

Social Media

There are countless stories of how social media applications such as Nextdoor, Facebook, and Twitter helped people communicate with others about their needs and helped in rescue efforts so I won鈥檛 get into them all here.

In one case, I heard about a woman in Houston with spina bifida who requires an electric wheelchair for mobility. As her house started flooding, 911 declined to help her until her house had a foot of water. Her wheelchair, however, could not operate in more than a half foot of water. As told to me by her friend, Julie Craig Whitmore, the woman took to Facebook with her plight and within a matter of hours of friends posting and reposting asking for boats and any help, she was rescued. Another Houstonian, Christine Norwood, told 小蓝视频色情网页版 News she is using Sign Up Genius to help people not affected by the storm to adopt neighbors with flooded homes. She鈥檚 also using social media to coordinate meals for those with flooded homes.

Nicholas Adams, president of Silicon Valley-based , points out that Facebook had just launched the year before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. At that time, there was no Twitter and smartphone technology was still in its infancy.

Today, he says, social media has become a legitimate resource in the case of large disasters.

鈥淎s human beings, in times of despair, we reach out,鈥� he told 小蓝视频色情网页版 News. 鈥淭echnology has made it so that we have a lifeline when we need it most. From separated family members trying to reconnect with loved ones to first responders searching for people in trapped spaces, the use of technology and social media comes to the rescue in so many cases.鈥�

While there鈥檚 no way technology can make up for all the losses suffered by people as a result of Hurricane Harvey, there鈥檚 no doubt that it did help in rescue and aid efforts. Here鈥檚 to hoping that it doesn鈥檛 need to come into play as much for Hurricane Irma.

Illustration:听