Cavalcade of unicorns going public – where should you invest?

LONDON — It looks as if 2019 will be the year when a number of high profile tech companies are going public. Ride-hailing company Lyft is first in line, followed by its bigger rival Uber. They are not the only companies who have signalled their intention to float; messaging start-up Slack, image company Pinterest and food delivery company Postmates are all moving closer to IPOs. There is good intentions in the flotations of Uber and Lyft for their drivers, as both companies have indicated that they are planning to offer cash bonuses to some of their longest-serving or most-active drivers which they can put into shares in the company. Estimations for the value of  two ride-haling companies have been estimate at between $20bn and $30bn for Lyft while Uber comes in at around $120bn. In an interview with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal, Rett Wallace of Triton.ai gave a list of factors that investors should consider before investing in newly-listed IPOs. He says big IPO listings have become less common. – Linda van Tilburg

Like most things, there are a couple of different narratives by way of explanation. What you only hear from people in Silicon Valley is that founders don't like to take their companies public because being a company's CEO is kind of a pain in the neck. So, anybody who's having to comply with the SEC and the Act and other things that were imposed on publicly traded companies as a protection against retail investors who buy their shares.

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