Is there a right time to take a company public, or should the IPO be treated as just another financing round?

Jason Lemkin · Jan 4, 2024

2024 is the year companies should stop waiting for better multiples and go public even at a low ARR multiple

It's the third year of a multiple downturn; 2023 saw a rocking Nasdaq and huge gains in HubSpot, Mongo and Shopify yet A-plus IPOs like Klaviyo, ARM and Instacart were only mediocre, so waiting for the market to turn isn't working

40:32 20VC: Predictions for 2024: What Happens to Early Stage VC Funding, Do a Load of Venture Funds Die, What do LPs Do in 2024, Does Figma Kill the M&A Market, Will IPOs Comeback & What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr

Jamin Ball · Jan 10, 2024

Companies should be willing to take a down-round IPO to reset the business, because an IPO resets the cap table, turns over the shareholder base, and delivers liquidity, and firms can still innovate in the public markets

All preferred converts to common, long-tenured holders get liquidity, and there are plenty of examples of companies building act two, three and four as public companies; public and private valuations both go up and down

Scope: requires managing and resetting employee expectations

44:56 20VC: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets in 2024, The Three Biggest Mistakes Made in Growth Investing, The Three Requirements Companies Need to Go Public in 2024 with Ed Sim and Jamin Ball

Thomas Plantenga · Feb 12, 2024

Going public will be the same game as raising privately — if your numbers clearly show how you convert cash into future cash flows, growth and defensibility, investor education is not something to worry about

Every time skeptics about secondhand see Vinted's financials they change their minds; in both private and public markets the numbers have to be razor sharp and obvious

Scope: conditional on the numbers being obviously clear

61:06 20VC: The Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces, Why Rule of 40 and EBITDA Optimisation is BS, How Founders & VCs Should Approach Market Sizing and Outcome Scenario Planning and Why Europe is Failing with Vinted CEO, Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig

Zach Perret · Oct 16, 2024

An IPO should be treated as a fundraising event and a milestone, and a company should go public only when it needs the capital, needs the milestone, or when being public is genuinely useful to the company.

The value and attractiveness of an IPO varies a lot by founder and situation, so it should be driven by company need rather than default ambition.

32:45 20VC: Why Founder Mode is Dangerous & Could Encourage Bad Behaviour | Why Fundraising is a Waste of Time & OKRs are BS | Why Angel Investing is Bad for Founders to Do and the VC Model is on it's Last Legs with Zach Perret @ Plaid

Adam Foroughi · Apr 27, 2026

There is no right time to go public: if you have a business with long-term growth conviction that anyone in the world could find interesting to own, just go public, treat it as another fundraising round, and build forward.

You can't time the market — AppLovin IPO'd late in the COVID growth-stock run-up and got caught in the collapse — so the IPO should be treated like a Series A/B/C rather than a market-timing decision.

Scope: conditional on having high-conviction long-term growth opportunities and enough scale to be broadly ownable

72:31 20VC: Applovin: $160BN Market Cap, $5.48BN Revenue, $10M EBITDA Per Head | Why the Best Do Not Need Mentorship | Why Founders Should Not Angel Invest | Why Kindness in Business Will Slow You Down with Adam Foroughi

Ryan Petersen · Jun 20, 2026

The 'IPO window' concept that bankers and founders obsess over doesn't hold up — going public at a lower price is economically the same as going public higher and having the stock fall.

The market sets the price either way, so waiting for a 'window' is a distinction without a difference.

14:01 20VC: Why Remote Work is White Collar Fraud | Why Revenge and Patriotism are the Best Founder Traits | Two Questions Every Founder Needs to Ask | The Wild Story of Raising $1BN from Masa Son in an Hour Long Meeting with Ryan Peterson, Founder @ Flexport

Jamin Ball · Jan 10, 2024

Public market scrutiny is a good thing for companies rather than something to fear, because it forces them to get fit, articulate a path to profitability, and think about being an enduring business

Like a college athlete refusing to go pro to avoid having their statistics critiqued, avoiding scrutiny is choosing to stay a child; the microscope is a forcing function to build durable muscle

50:04 20VC: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets in 2024, The Three Biggest Mistakes Made in Growth Investing, The Three Requirements Companies Need to Go Public in 2024 with Ed Sim and Jamin Ball

Michael Eisenberg · Jun 19, 2024

Companies should go public early, take whatever price the public markets offer, and build the company in the public markets — e.g. IPO at $600M on $100M of revenue raising $80M rather than waiting

You will be a better, more efficient business for having been built in the public markets

Scope: doesn't claim public markets will pay a 2x premium later; if bankers insist on a $500M raise, use a second-tier banker instead

31:33 20VC: Foundation Models are the Fastest Depreciating Asset in History, Lina Kahn is a Threat to American Capitalism, PE is Not Coming to Save the M&A Market & How China Could Overtake the US in the AI Race with Michael Eisenberg

Imran Khan · Aug 26, 2024

Companies become better businesses by being public because the sheer number of public investors examining the business surfaces insights management cannot see on its own

When many players care about your business they look at it in many different ways and tell you things you would not see; great founders and teams execute regardless of whether the stock goes up or down

13:15 20VC: Why the IPO Market is not Closed | Why Revenue Multiples are BS and Founders Need to Change | Advice From Jack Ma, Jamie Dimon and Evan Spiegel | Lessons from Taking Snap & Alibaba Public with Imran Khan

Mitchell Green · Mar 28, 2025

Being a public company makes companies better, and the great venture investors would today be pushing founders hard to go public rather than letting them fear public-market scrutiny

Founders shouldn't be afraid of a 27-year-old Harvard Business School analyst; the discipline is survivable and beneficial

20:08 20VC: Why Traditional VC is Broken: How VCs Learned Nothing from 2021 | Why LPs are More Important than Founders & Advice to Emerging Managers | Bull Case for Bytedance & Why TikTok's Ban Doesn't Matter with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Mitchell Green · Mar 28, 2025 · hedged

Being public does impose real operating discipline and prioritisation — a necessary evil that founders like Benioff or the Google founders would acknowledge — even though the quarterly guidance cadence is somewhat nonsensical

Public-market obligations force prioritisation, and public status also removes the competitive attack of being dismissed as a tiny private business, as with Zoom

Scope: quarterly cadence is ridiculous; some companies legitimately care less and accept more volatile stock; dual-class structures are an acceptable accommodation

20:43 20VC: Why Traditional VC is Broken: How VCs Learned Nothing from 2021 | Why LPs are More Important than Founders & Advice to Emerging Managers | Bull Case for Bytedance & Why TikTok's Ban Doesn't Matter with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Andrew Dudum · Apr 4, 2026

The biggest companies in the world went public within their first few years rather than staying private for a decade or two, and being forced to figure out growth and efficiency in public markets is part of what built them

Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon all IPO'd early and their founders had to prove growth, efficiency and vision in the public markets

3:50 20VC: Hims & Hers: $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue: The Comeback | Why Being Public is 10x Better | The Death of the "Strategy" Hire | Why Performance Marketing is Worse than Brand Marketing with Andrew Dudum

David Schneider · Sep 11, 2024

Going public early served customers as much as investors, because visible financials stop you being dismissed as a small Silicon Valley startup

Their job was to get liquidity for investors and give customers visibility into who they were and what their financials looked like

23:00 20VC: Scaling ServiceNow to $5BN in ARR | Leadership Lessons from Doug Leone, Frank Slootman and Bill McDermott | VC Value Add: Is it Real and Why the Worst VCs are "Seagull VCs"

Andrew Feldman · Mar 24, 2025

Going public makes sense for Cerebras despite disclosure costs, because being among the first public company in the category is valuable and large enterprise and target customers state a preference for doing business with public companies

Large US enterprises have historically preferred public suppliers, and Cerebras' edge is asymmetric technology rather than secrecy

Scope: requires organizational readiness to forecast, predict and be held accountable

42:53 20VC: AI Chip Wars: How Cerebras Plans to Topple NVIDIA's Dominance | Why We Have Not Reached Scaling Laws in AI | What Happens to the Cost of Inference | How We Underestimate China and Shouldn't Sell To Them with Andrew Feldman

Matthew Steckman · Mar 23, 2026 · hedged

Being a public company confers an additional level of trust within the US national security apparatus that private companies don't get.

There's a pedigree to public listing in defense work — it's never said out loud, but the trust is afforded differently.

Scope: says it isn't formally an expectation and 'no one would ever say it out loud'; specific to the US national security apparatus

41:41 20VC: Inside Anduril's $20BN Army Contract & Why Anduril Must Go Public | Why 99% of Drone Companies Will Die | Why There is Never an Ethical Question of How Anduril Products are Used with Matthew Steckman, President @ Anduril

Gili Raanan · Mar 28, 2026

Going public is a branding and marketing event, not a financial or liquidity event — it is the opposite of liquidity

An IPO tells customers, partners and current and future employees that you are here to stay, while imposing lock-ups and trading limitations that shackle founders' ability to sell stock

Scope: typically

30:11 20VC: The Venture Model is Broken | You Need to be Greedy and Selfish to Win Early Stage Investing | Why Margins Do Not Matter for Early-Stage Startups | The Growth Rate that is Required in a World of AI with Gili Raanan, Founder @ Cyberstarts

Harry Stebbings · Aug 26, 2024

A company like Stripe has no reason to go public, because secondaries already give employees and investors liquidity, staying private avoids financial disclosure and public scrutiny, and there is ample capital willing to buy in at a great price

All the benefits of being public are available privately without the costs of the public spotlight

20:23 20VC: Why the IPO Market is not Closed | Why Revenue Multiples are BS and Founders Need to Change | Advice From Jack Ma, Jamie Dimon and Evan Spiegel | Lessons from Taking Snap & Alibaba Public with Imran Khan

Fabien Pinckaers · Feb 12, 2025

Odoo will never IPO

Public companies refocus on the short term via earnings calls and quarterly results, whereas Odoo's success came from building long term; plus he wants to avoid the constraints, complexity and reporting and keep the freedom to say whatever he wants

53:14 20VC: The $5BN Company Built from the Belgian Countryside | The Story of Odoo: The Company with No Plans to Sell, IPO & Their Billionaire Founder Who Does Not Care About Money with Fabien Pinckaers, Founder & CEO @ Odoo

Harry Stebbings · Dec 15, 2025

Going public offers Stripe no benefit worth the cost of answering to junior public-market analysts

12:08 20VC: a16z's David George on How $BN Funds Can 5×, Do Margins & Revenue Matter in AI & the Most Controversial Bet at a16z

Alan Chang · Jan 5, 2026

Fuse has no need to go public — and if it ever did list, it would list in the US

There is a lot of liquidity in private markets and significant overhead to being listed; the only real reason to list would be if private-market liquidity dried up

Scope: personal view

52:16 20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy

Harry Stebbings · Mar 19, 2025

If a company needs a 25-year-old bank analyst to tell it to increase margins, it probably doesn't have a great business — so public-market discipline isn't a good reason to IPO

Good businesses shouldn't need outside public-market analysts to identify basic operational improvements

Scope: endorsing a position stated by a previous guest

35:29 20VC: The 10 Question Framework a $217BN Manager Uses to Make Investment Decisions | Lessons from Turning Down Stripe, Coinbase and Losing Money on Northvault | The Bull Case for Bytedance | How Anduril Could Be a $200BN Company with Peter Singlehurst

Harry Stebbings · Mar 28, 2025

If a CEO needs a Goldman analyst telling them to improve margins to create internal discipline, they clearly don't have a great company

Discipline should be intrinsic to a good company, not imported from sell-side analysts

20:28 20VC: Why Traditional VC is Broken: How VCs Learned Nothing from 2021 | Why LPs are More Important than Founders & Advice to Emerging Managers | Bull Case for Bytedance & Why TikTok's Ban Doesn't Matter with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Harry Stebbings · Jun 6, 2025

If a company needs a 28-year-old bank analyst to tell it to increase margins, it probably isn't a great business anyway

Stripe has publicly argued that needing public-market discipline is itself a signal of poor management

62:29 20VC: The Science of Storytelling: Three Steps to Master the Perfect Story | From Near Death Experience to Unicorn Startup: The Untold Story of Omaze with Matt Pohlson

Alexandr Wang · Jun 12, 2024

There are clear benefits to being a public company, but Stripe is a case where a company can be incredibly profitable and hit all its core financial goals without going public

Scope: weighs both sides: public-market benefits are real, but Stripe's profitability removes the need

56:45 20VC: Scale's Alex Wang on Why Data Not Compute is the Bottleneck to Foundation Model Performance, Why AI is the Greatest Military Asset Ever, Is China Really Two Years Behind the US in AI and Why the CCPs Industrial Approach is Better than Anyone Else's

Imran Khan · Aug 26, 2024

Stripe does not need to go public, and staying private indefinitely is honourable — provided the company is profitable and buys back employee and shareholder stock rather than continuously raising new money to fund liquidity and operations

Cargill has been private for a long time and there is nothing wrong with that; what feels wrong is perpetually raising capital to pay employees liquidity and run the business

Scope: conditional on the business being profitable; conditional on returning capital rather than raising it for liquidity

20:39 20VC: Why the IPO Market is not Closed | Why Revenue Multiples are BS and Founders Need to Change | Advice From Jack Ma, Jamie Dimon and Evan Spiegel | Lessons from Taking Snap & Alibaba Public with Imran Khan

Fabien Pinckaers · Feb 12, 2025

Odoo will never sell shares and will never IPO; its managers should keep buying shares instead

He and the managers have always been buyers of shares, never sellers, so a low share price was desirable

0:00 20VC: The $5BN Company Built from the Belgian Countryside | The Story of Odoo: The Company with No Plans to Sell, IPO & Their Billionaire Founder Who Does Not Care About Money with Fabien Pinckaers, Founder & CEO @ Odoo

Jason Lemkin · Jan 13, 2023

Staying private is a real advantage in this market because you can absorb valuation compression out of public view.

Running a public company down 70% while revenues are up is a morale crusher for the team; private companies can hide the drama as long as there's no down round or need to raise.

Scope: as long as there's no down round or major drama; assumes you don't need to raise capital

12:03 20VC: WTF is Going On in VC? Are VCs Still Investing? How Has What VCs Want in Investments Changed? Are LPs Investing in New Funds? Why VCs That Invest in Public Markets Are Losers? Dec 2023; Will It Be Better Or Worse with Jason Lemkin

Davis Smith · Dec 15, 2023

Public markets are so fickle that they make running a consumer brand genuinely harder, whereas private VC and PE investors won't slash a valuation by that much over a business hiccup

Allbirds is down ~95% from peak valuation despite a great brand, great product and revenues that have shrunk nowhere near that much

Scope: unsure of exact Allbirds revenue trajectory

50:26 20VC: Cotopaxi: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling $150M in Revenues and Challenging Patagonia, Fundraising Lessons from 100+ Rejections & What Founders Do Not Understand About VC with Davis Smith, Founder @ Cotopaxi

Harry Stebbings · Mar 7, 2026

Public market volatility vindicates staying private — Canva and Stripe are right not to go out, while Atlassian at down 76% with accelerating numbers is a buy

Stocks like Figma and Atlassian swing violently regardless of underlying performance

44:35 20VC: Why the SaaS Apocalypse is BS | Why China Will Win the AI War | Why 50% of VCs Should Not Exist and are Tourists | Why Stock-Based Comp is the Hidden Sin of the Valley with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Hussein Kanji · Jan 20, 2025

Very large private companies are already effectively public-ready — they comply with SEC requirements and have built the infrastructure to list whenever they choose

Shareholder count thresholds force them into compliance even while private

62:24 20VC: Why Large Seed Rounds Increase the Chances of Success | When to Sell in Venture | Why Multi-Stage Firms Do Not Do The Work | Is Europe Totally F****** and Why AI Means London Can Compete with the US with Hussein Kanji

Harry Stebbings · Oct 22, 2025

For a company at $1BN revenue, profitable and growing like Deel, IPO timing within twelve months is not too short — it is a personal choice for the founder

The financial profile is already there, so remaining obstacles are matters of personal preference

58:55 20VC: Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation | Deel vs Rippling: WTF is Going On | Management Lessons from Ben Horowitz and Nik Storonsky | Deel's M&A Playbook: Lessons from 13 Acquisitions: What Works & What Doesn't

Matt Pohlson · Jun 6, 2025

Going public is still the most efficient and impactful way for most companies to give shareholders liquidity, lower cost of capital and create a branding moment — even though it's more of an open question than it once was

Only companies like Stripe or SpaceX have private access to liquidity comparable to being public; most companies don't, and an IPO can also matter for brand and international expansion

Scope: not true for companies like Stripe or SpaceX; staying private avoids volatility hurting internal morale

63:00 20VC: The Science of Storytelling: Three Steps to Master the Perfect Story | From Near Death Experience to Unicorn Startup: The Untold Story of Omaze with Matt Pohlson

Lucas Swisher · Feb 23, 2026

There are three good reasons to go public today: true liquidity at scale without layered SPVs, the public market as a powerful feedback mechanism, and the protection that comes with being a large public company

Private liquidity means opaque layers of SPVs and cap-table problems companies themselves dislike; public analysts spotted Netflix's disc-to-streaming transition early; and as a public company levered to 401(k)s and indices it is harder for others to mess with you

Scope: notes the feedback-mechanism reason cuts both ways

42:22 20VC: Inside Coatue's $70BN Machine: Why Price Matters Least | Why Mega Markets are the Most Important | How to Assess Durability of Revenue and Margins in AI with Lucas Swisher

Jason Wilk · Apr 21, 2025

Going public via SPAC was not the mistake; the mistake was going public too late, since Dave was ready six to twelve months earlier

The company was realistically ready to be public six to twelve months before it listed

Scope: specific to Dave's situation

0:47 20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave

Jason Wilk · Apr 21, 2025

Dave's mistake was not the SPAC itself but going public too late — roughly six to twelve months later than the company was ready

Going out in January 2022 meant the market collapsed before lockup expired, PIPE investors bailed, and the company had no analyst coverage or long-term shareholder base; going out nine months earlier would have allowed more capital, a shareholder turnover, and insulation rather than a fall from $5B to $50M market cap overnight

Scope: said in hindsight about Dave specifically

16:24 20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave

Ed Sim · Jan 10, 2024

Going public gives a company a public currency that is a major advantage for both hiring talent and acquiring other companies

Few people want to join a late-stage private company without knowing what their restricted stock is worth, and a public stock lets you tell private acquisition targets their shares will be liquid within six months

48:01 20VC: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets in 2024, The Three Biggest Mistakes Made in Growth Investing, The Three Requirements Companies Need to Go Public in 2024 with Ed Sim and Jamin Ball

Mitchell Green · Mar 7, 2026

Staying private meaningfully limits a company's ability to do very large M&A, because mega-deals require a liquid public stock as acquisition currency

Public targets' shareholders will not accept private stock and buyers rarely do all-cash offers at that scale; only a sovereign wealth fund could fund a $40B cash check

Scope: small billion-dollar acquisitions remain easy with cash on hand; the Stripe/PayPal example is speculative and unverified

47:14 20VC: Why the SaaS Apocalypse is BS | Why China Will Win the AI War | Why 50% of VCs Should Not Exist and are Tourists | Why Stock-Based Comp is the Hidden Sin of the Valley with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital

Alex Bouaziz · Oct 22, 2025

Deel is not ready to IPO within twelve months; it first needs SOX compliance infrastructure, certain leadership hires, and four to five clean quarters with the exec team in place

Going public requires infrastructure, compliance and leadership readiness, and you want a track record of clean quarters with your executive team before going out

59:05 Ipo readiness requires sox compliance leadership hires and clean quarters

Jason Lemkin · Jan 4, 2024

ServiceTitan should go public even if it prices at $5-6B instead of the ~$10B last round, because the liquidity, M&A currency and maturity are worth more than the headline valuation

On average multiples an A-plus company like this would price below its last round, and it's time to provide employee liquidity and use stock for M&A

42:25 Liquidity and m and a currency outweigh a lower ipo valuation marker

Tobias Lütke · May 4, 2026

Being a trusted public company is the best possible state for a company, but reaching it requires passing through a period of being an untrusted public company, which is why many founders avoid going public.

The ranking runs from trusted public (best) to trusted private to untrusted public; founders who are trusted by their private investors can't stomach the temporary step down that an IPO forces on them.

12:56 Trusted public is the best end state worth the untrusted phase

Dominik Richter · Dec 1, 2023

The way HelloFresh's category was trading would not have allowed the business to IPO at any other point in time.

The way their category traded would not have allowed an IPO at any other point in time.

0:00 Category market conditions determine the feasible ipo window

Immad Akhund · May 12, 2025

Companies should delay going public as long as possible today because of structural problems in the public markets

The cost and rules of being public are very high, and with the rise of passive index funds there are so few active public investors that a sub-scale company — even a $5B one — can barely get an analyst's attention

51:14 Passive investing and public market costs favor delaying ipo

Severin Hacker · May 19, 2025

Companies should go public, and more European companies in particular should IPO, because it is better for the startup ecosystem.

The wealth and liquidity created flows back into the local ecosystem; where the listing venue is doesn't matter as long as the proceeds recycle into Europe.

67:35 Ipo proceeds recycling into local ecosystem justifies going public regardless of listing venue

Severin Hacker · May 19, 2025 · hedged

In today's uncertain market there is a stronger argument for a private company to stay private, but very mature businesses like Stripe should still go public.

Uncertainty makes public-market predictability demands hard to meet, while mature companies going public creates employee liquidity whose proceeds flow back into the local startup ecosystem — exactly what Europe needs.

69:51 Uncertain markets strengthen the case for staying private though mature businesses should still ipo

Micha Kaufman · Jun 9, 2025

Going public is a great choice for long-term thinkers but a bad idea for anyone who believes they can control the market or influence their share price

42:34 Going public suits long term thinkers but punishes those who want to control share price

Matthew Steckman · Mar 23, 2026

Anduril isn't ready to IPO until more of its ~20 core products climb the J curve into rate production and throw cash back to the business — today only about a quarter are there.

Everything else is in low-rate or development and therefore losing money; the IPO event is triggered once enough products turn profitable.

42:19 Ipo timing gated by enough products reaching cash generating rate production

Harry Stebbings · Jun 6, 2025

Going public is not a rational decision

63:40 Going public is not a rational decision for most companies

Harry Stebbings · Jun 6, 2025

Companies with a public-facing consumer brand can list in the US and tell a clear story to US investors, whereas niche industrial businesses find that very hard

A recognisable consumer brand like Omaze gives US investors an easy story; a business like elevator door closures in Sheffield is difficult to make a sexy US success story

64:23 Consumer facing brand recognition enables a compelling us ipo story niche industrials struggle to tell one

Peter Singlehurst · Mar 19, 2025

Companies can build a better business by staying private for longer

Being public is genuinely hard: reporting requirements, shareholders who own your stock for reasons misaligned with your goals, having to operate in the cold light of day, and competitors learning almost everything about your business because you must tell shareholders almost everything; staying private allows greater focus

35:50 Staying private longer produces a better built business

David Schneider · Sep 11, 2024

Before going public you must prove pipeline visibility for the next four to eight quarters so you don't miss after the IPO

23:30 Prove pipeline visibility for four to eight quarters before ipo

Andrew Dudum · Apr 4, 2026

A founder should only go public if the business is predictable with consistency and the founder is willing to commit to a decade or two in the public markets

You can't enter the markets without confidence in forecasting, and an IPO is a beginning rather than a liquidity event or exit

5:38 Go public only with predictable forecasting and a decade commitment

Jamin Ball · Jan 10, 2024

Large gaps between last private valuation and public market clearing price are workable today, because ZIRP-era rounds were light on terms and lacked the ratchets and heavy anti-dilution clauses that made down-round IPOs prohibitive after 2008

Post-2008 rounds carried ratchets that meant going public at a down round would dilute the company to the ground, whereas 2021-era rounds were structurally clean

46:45 Zirp era clean terms without ratchets make down round ipos feasible unlike post 2008

Ed Sim · Jan 10, 2024

To go public today a company needs to be cash-flow breakeven, growing 30%+, and moving toward a rule of 40 or 50 weighted more to growth than to profitability

30% is what counts as high growth in the current market

49:36 Cash flow breakeven 30 percent growth and rule of 40 50 are the 2024 ipo bar

Jamin Ball · Jan 10, 2024

Staying private too long destroys IPO outcomes, because a company that lists once growth has slowed and it isn't profitable will only get a two to three times revenue multiple

Companies follow a curve from growth mode to maturity; Twilio, MongoDB and Shopify went public at $1-2B and compounded that value in the public markets, an option lost if you wait until decelerating

51:34 Staying private too long caps the eventual ipo multiple

Amit Bendov · Sep 12, 2025

Secondaries are a good option for founders and can substitute for the liquidity rationale of an IPO, since many fast-growing companies don't need the cash an IPO provides.

Companies go public for cash, brand recognition or liquidity; many companies already have enough cash and generate more, and the secondary market is evolving to provide the liquidity.

54:59 Secondaries substitute for the ipo liquidity rationale