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NYC, IPO


#304
NYC's Top Dog

Published:

Sep 21, 2019


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Posted In:

NYC, IPO

Published:

Sep 21, 2019


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Congratulations to the founders, employees, and investors at NYC-based Datadog on their incredible IPO! After pricing the shares at a $7.8b valuation, the stock rose 40% on its first day of trading to an $11b market cap.

The achievement goes beyond the company and its stakeholders – it’s a new milestone for the NYC tech ecosystem. From a valuation perspective, DataDog surpasses prior NYC IPO standouts such as MongoDB ($1.2b valuation at IPO, $7.5b today), Etsy ($1.8b valuation at IPO, $7.2b valuation today), and Yext ($1b valuation at IPO, $2b today), to name a few.

Datadog also surpasses the recent M&A standouts of Flatiron Health ($2.1b) and AppNexus ($2b).

And the hits for NYC may keep coming. Peloton is planning to raise $1.2b in an IPO that would value the company at $8b. Though WeWork has delayed its IPO amidst valuation and governance concerns, even a major discount to its $47b private market valuation could make it the most valuable NYC tech exit once it does go public.

Unlike other NYC startups, Datadog and MongoDB prove that critical software infrastructure can be built outside the confines of Silicon Valley. Though not currently planning an IPO, UiPath (privately valued at $7.1b) further makes the case for enterprise software in NYC.

We certainly hope Datadog is a harbinger for many more NYC deals to come!

Portfolio News


Visa and Mastercard sign up for investments in fintech unicorn Plaid - Congratulations to portfolio company Plaid on raising an incremental Series C investment from both MasterCard and Visa! Read more

Wells Fargo strikes deal with Plaid to share customer bank data - Wells Fargo plans to share customer information with portfolio company Plaid, a data company that connects banks to thousands of financial-technology applications. Read more

NYC's Top Dog


Datadog stock surges 39%: its CEO recounts when the company was an underdog in New York - Datadog's founders reflect on the challenges of raising initial funding and some of the benefits of being based in NYC - including proximity to corporate customers and remaining focused outside of "the echo chamber in Silicon Valley." Read more

Industry News


Goldman is using JPMorgan’s own tactics against it in ETF battle - The investment bank has filed for a line of broad-based index products with extremely low fees, and planting an early flag in Europe, as they continue to try to capture a larger share of the $4t ETF market. Read more

New York extends lead over Brexit-hit London in finance center poll - Sorry, FinTech Collective’s Gareth. In the Z/Yen Group survey for 2019, New York extended its lead over London to 17 points - and London's second place ranking in the index is at risk of falling to Hong Kong. Read more

Now money offers alternative for Gulf’s unbanked expats - The company aims to open up financial services for the low-income workers in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council: labourers, taxi drivers, cleaners and hotel staff who arrive largely from South Asia and Africa. Read more

Companies compete to be cryptocurrency custodians - What is the safest way to store digital currencies? The answer to that question could decide the biggest winners in a multibillion-dollar race to determine what companies will be the leading custodians of cryptocurrencies for money managers and other institutions. Read more

Traders could lose weekends in digital age, BitMex’s Hayes says - Hayes, who co-founded the exchange BitMex, noted that most markets currently open and close, remain shut on weekends, and some even have lunch breaks. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Read more

UK ‘unicorn’ TransferWise taps business demand to lift profits - Transferwise, which was briefly crowned Europe’s most valuable privately owned fintech company last year, saw pre-tax profits climb 29% to £10.1m in the 12 months to March 31, according to its latest annual report published on Wednesday. Read more

Curve’s cloudy crowdfunding - The FT's Alphaville digs through London based Curve's recent crowdfunding deck that, despite being thin on information like customer churn, cash flow, margins or management’s preferred key performance indicators, helped them raise £4m in 42 minutes! Read more

Deutsche Bank stake lifts Deposit Solutions to €1bn valuation - Deutsche Bank is paying €50m for a 4.9 per cent stake in Deposit Solutions in a transaction that values the Hamburg-based start-up at more than €1bn. Read more

Alibaba and Tencent refuse to hand loans data to Beijing - China’s tech giants Tencent and Alibaba are apparently refusing to co-operate with a government-backed credit scoring program by withholding access to their troves of customer loans data. Read more

Mark Zuckerberg struggles to keep Libra alive - As Bloomberg points out, a cryptocurrency run by central banks might be better than one run by Facebook and friends. That still doesn't make it a good idea. Read more

What I wish Silicon Valley understood about Alibaba - A LinkedIn post by early Alibaba employee, Brian Wong on meeting Jack Ma in San Francisco in 1999 after 30+ VCs had declined to invest in Alibaba. Read more

Your parents’ financial advice is (kind of) wrong - The WSJ examines the personal-finance playbook followed by past generations and finds that it doesn’t add up for many people the way it used to. It’s time for some new money rules. Read more

Bitcoin grows in periods of low equity market volatility: report - We all know the benefits of some exposure to Bitcoin in a portfolio - minimum correlation with traditional assets like equities. A new report by Delphi Digital research indicates that the strongest correlation Bitcoin has is an inverse relationship with the VIX. Read more

Select Financings


Alloy - New York based identification compliance startup has raised $12m of Series A capital from Bessemer Venture Partners. Read more

Broker Buddha - New York City based commercial insurance application and renewal workflow automation startup has raised $4.5m of Series A capital from Vertex Ventures. Read more

Greenlight - Atlanta based debit card and financial platform kids has raised $54m in Series B funding led by Drive Capital with participation from JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Read more

Oportun Financial - California based retail consumer unsecured lender has filed to raise $100m in an IPO that values the company at ~$500m. Read more

Stripe - Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz were among the investors behind the $250 million investment valuing the company at $35 billion, up about 50% from an early 2019 funding round. Read more

Vouch Insurance - San Francisco and Chicago based insurance startup serving high growth startups has raised $24.5m in Series A funding led by Ribbit Capital and SVB Financial. Read more


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