Is the Era of Hot Tech IPOs Over?

By Trey Thoelcke Published Nov 14, 7:40AM EST

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Since 2011, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD), Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN), Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZYNGA) and most recently Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) have all gone public, some more successfully than others. But have we seen the last of the hot tech initial public offerings (IPOs) for the foreseeable future? The answer is both yes and no.

There are plenty more trendy services, largely aimed at users of mobile devices, that could line up to go public, including the likes of Box, King.com, Pinterest, Snapchat, Spotify and Square. However, with the possible exception of Square, none of them are as widely recognized as Facebook or Twitter.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes keep hitting new highs, and sentiment among venture capitalists is also strong. So the market remains favorable for tech IPOs.

Pinterest has received $425 million in venture capital this year. The company was recently valued at nearly $4 billion, but it could be several years before it shows a profit.

Snapchat reportedly just turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook. China’s Tencent Holdings supposedly also showed an interest in investing in the company at a $4 billion valuation.

Square, a payments startup established by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, reportedly is in discussions with bankers for a 2014 IPO.

Other rumored IPOs come not from social media players but companies with businesses as their customers. File-sharing services provider Dropbox, customer relationship software maker SugarCRM, green-tech firm Opower and marketing software firm HubSpot are among them, though none have actually filed for an IPO so far.

Executives from Pinterest, apartment-rental site Airbnb, note-taking service Evernote and on-demand car services app Uber have all denied rumors of impending IPOs. But it is not unusual for firms to be coy while they get their ducks in a row.

There are certainly more high-tech IPOs to come, though few, if any, will generate the kind of buzz that Facebook and Twitter did by coming public.

About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.