I don't think a company should be raising funding at this level because it implies that at some eventual IPO the market cap will be $750B or more--no private investors are going in looking for less than 5x return. Honestly any valuation over, say, $50B should be in the public markets.
retail investors may be not as efficient as private professional investors, but public markets allow retail investors to participate in wealth creation.
It will IPO once the “accredited investor” class have an inkling that the company has ~2 years of good growth left so they can make it past the lockup period and ride off into the sunset. Rinse and repeat. There is so much private capital out there, the only reason to go public is because retail investor folks lack the means for proper diligence & restitution.
I guess it's a reasonable enough financing decision for a fast growing pre-IPO company which cannot issue public debt. Gives them optionality and access to short-term debt at likely favorable terms, as I imagine banks are trying to please them however they can to win future mandates
Are they preparing for a potential down turn, else at this level they might be setting themselves for a down round. Unless people believe that OpenAI could be the first $1T valuation startup
Unicorns are $1B valuation startups. What’s a good name for a $1T valuation startup? God Statup?
What about pegasus? Even better would be a pegacorn/alicorn, but not enough people are familiar with those names. It seems like the natural next step would be a unicorn that's taken flight.
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[ 7.3 ms ] story [ 48.0 ms ] threadBut there is also long term gain: 10-100y after IPO stocks in your 401k like google, facebook, tesla, microsoft, ibm, etc.
Are they preparing for a potential down turn, else at this level they might be setting themselves for a down round. Unless people believe that OpenAI could be the first $1T valuation startup
Unicorns are $1B valuation startups. What’s a good name for a $1T valuation startup? God Statup?
But Phoenix has a negative connotation with the burning into flames part. Not sure if many startups would like to call them Phoenixes :)