Unicorns and Decacorns - The Madness of Webvestors

Generali

http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of-unicorns/?utm_content=bufferd8dfc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Stewart Butterfield had one objective when he set out to raise money for his startup last fall: a billion dollars or nothing. If he couldn’t reach a $1 billion valuation for Slack, his San Francisco business software company, he wouldn’t bother. Slack was hardly starving for cash. It was a rocket ship, with thousands of people signing up for its workplace collaboration tools each week. What Slack needed, Butterfield believed, was the cachet of the billion-dollar mark......

Not content to run with the pack—or “blessing,” as a group of unicorns is sometimes known—venture capitalists have begun targeting even bigger game. They’re now hunting startups with the potential to rapidly reach a $10 billion valuation—or, as Green calls them, “decacorns.” In late 2013 just one private company had crossed that threshold: Facebook. Now there are at least eight, including Uber, the on-demand car service worth $41.2 billion. Its valuation is higher than the market capitalization of at least 70% of the companies in the Fortune 500.

Uber, lest we forget, is basically a multinational, illegal minicab service which is apparently worth £27,500,000,000.

This is what happens when money is effectively free. It's going to be very interesting once rates start to rise.

ruggedtoast

My colleague used Uber when I was in California, as it was late after we ate and she didn't fancy the 20 minute or so walk back to the hotel. It was dead easy to use and seeing the taxi arrive in real time on the uber map was amazing.

Before long a nice Chinese man in a Mercedes arrived. He said he'd only been Ubering for one day. He had no idea where he was going, even with the Uber GPS map telling him turn by turn. We eventually arrived at the hotel for which my colleague's card was charged $2. He appeared horrified when she tried to give him a tip and said he couldnt take it (though he did).

Our journey didnt make the news for some reason, what was making the news was an Uber customer who had been driven 70 miles out of her outside LA where she was then locked in the drivers car in the middle of nowhere while he made overtures to sexually molest her. He then gave up and drove her back, 70 miles, for which Uber refunded her fare.

Meanwhile they are banning Uber drivers from Las Vegas and impounding and cubing their cars. Uber are promising to cover the costs of all destroyed drivers' cars and are confident they can sue the city to allow Uber on the Strip. They say their pockets are bottomless and there is no way city government's can stand against them.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

The founder of Ship Your Enemies Glitter, a single-purpose website that lets customers anonymously ship their enemies glitter, has sold his business for US$85,000 less than two weeks after starting it.

Mathew Carpenter, a 22-year-old Australian, launched the site with little but a PayPal account and some well-written advertising copy.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/22/ship-your-enemies-glitter-site-sells

Very funny....

Took 20K in revenue within first 2 weeks then sold it for 85K.

Guess there's only so much glitter one man can stuff in envelopes.....

michaels

Generali wrote: »

http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of-unicorns/?utm_content=bufferd8dfc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer



Uber, lest we forget, is basically a multinational, illegal minicab service which is apparently worth £27,500,000,000.

This is what happens when money is effectively free. It's going to be very interesting once rates start to rise.

Sounds like sour grapes because you have not been able to sell the emperor a new set of clothes for 40bln

paddyrg

It's ridiculous, it's as if nobody remembers dotcomboomandbust1.0 - there's a shedload of quick-term greed hoping not to be the one holding the shares WHEN the bubble bursts. They'll have flogged them to nurses pension funds etc long before then and hopefully live out their miserable soulless lives on some remote island where we don't have to see them.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Sounds like sour grapes because you have not been able to sell the emperor a new set of clothes for 40bln

Sour grapes doesn't begin to describe it. I'm livid!

Graham_Devon

I've never understood how whatsapp can be worth so much money.

Sure, it's got a lot of users, but they are paying next to nothing (after the first years free use).

And then theres Spotify, which cannot possibly create a profit, yet is worth 3-4 billion.

Facebook managed to monetize things, but it's rapidly turning into one of those old style type "portals" with advertising everywhere.

antrobus

Graham_Devon wrote: »

....And then theres Spotify, which cannot possibly create a profit, yet is worth 3-4 billion....

Spotify's UK revenues rose 42% in 2013 as music service turned a profit
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/07/spotify-uk-revenues-2013-profit-music

Sometimes the impossible happens.:)

Graham_Devon

antrobus wrote: »

Spotify's UK revenues rose 42% in 2013 as music service turned a profit
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/07/spotify-uk-revenues-2013-profit-music

Sometimes the impossible happens.:)

That's just the UK division.

antrobus

Graham_Devon wrote: »

That's just the UK division.

Yes, I know. But if Spotify can make a profit in the UK, as well as in Sweden, it sort of suggests that maybe it can make a profit in its other divisions, now doesn't it? Kinda makes me think that you might be rushing to judgement to proclaim that it "cannot possibly create a profit".:)

jjlandlord

Generali wrote: »

Uber, lest we forget, is basically a multinational, illegal minicab service which is apparently worth £27,500,000,000.

How is it illegal?

If anything Uber highlights the fact that the industry is held by a !!!!! with the complicity of governments.
Competition is good for consumers, right?

Now, their valuation is madness, no doubt about that.

Edit: Apparently the forum censors a word of italian origin used to describe businessmen who have the sense of family...