Who says the tech IPO market is dead?
Facebook should not be the bellwether of the tech IPO space for 2 primary reason:
1. They are no longer a growth company.
The days of buying penny stock in emerging tech startups is mostly over. Venture capitalists have taken over that role. Companies are staying private for long periods of time and only looking to the public as a way to cash out. If you bought into the FB IPO at its $100 billion validation, what was your plan exactly? Wait until FB hits $200B, $300B? It’s not going to happen.
2. They are hardly a tech company.
Tech is about innovation. Facebook’s only innovation is in monetization of ad space. Just because they are a website, doesn’t make them tech. At least Amazon is rapidly expanding into cloud services (AWS).
The real tech IPO market is the unknowns that pop up and miss the mainstream press. This week Palo Alto Networks debuted, and hit a home run.
