Unicorns go public

“In 2017, we’re likely to see at least a few highly valued ‘unicorns’ go public, as their early-venture capital backers will want to see liquidity on their investments. Whether these companies – perhaps Airbnb, Uber or Dropbox, perhaps others – will fare well as public companies remains to be seen. And whether any such initial public offerings will create knock-on effects in making early stage capital more available to promising tech start-ups is equally unclear. Apart from those in Silicon Valley or in a very few other financing hotspots around the world, in 2017, most entrepreneurs are going to have to continue to finance and grow their start-ups the old-fashioned way – just as Michael Dell and Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Paul Allen did – using their customers’ funds.” – John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship and author of ‘The Customer-funded Business’