Ask HN: Why do companies wait so long to IPO?
I invest in small cap public companies. I'd love to invest in the startups I follow and use. What are the main reasons companies wait so long to IPO? (usually wait until they are $XX billion company)
It's now possible to raise basically unbounded amounts of money in private placements, and also for existing shareholders to sell into private secondary markets.
Here's more: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-12-02/goldman-i..., https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-03-24/private-c...
This is not investment advice.
If you want to invest in truly small cap tech companies (say, under $400 million valuation), AngelList (https://angel.co/invest/start) is probably the largest market.
If you want to invest in small-ish cap tech companies of the size that might have already been public 20 years ago (say, $400 million-$1 billion valuation), SecondMarket/Nasdaq Private Market (https://www.nasdaqprivatemarket.com/) is probably the largest market.
Hopefully this is obvious, but just in case: this should be a tiny portion of one's investable assets - think less than 5% - and this asset class should be as diversified - ie, include many positions - as any other. Otherwise, these aren't investments, they're lotto tickets. As it is, I think https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-09/retail-vo... is true of late-stage startups too; an individual is very unlikely to form a uniquely informed opinion.