IPO Stirrings Among The Unicorns?

Among the bigger news within eCommerce unicorns this past week is the continuing competition between Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart, as the firms gear up for the traditional selling season in India, beginning next month.

The leaders in the space, and in India, are Amazon and Flipkart, jousting for market share. The laggard, Snapdeal, has continually been mentioned in the financial trade press as a candidate for possible merger or acquisition. Some industry watchers state that, if Amazon is able to extend its lead over the other two firms, Snapdeal and Flipkart may have to engineer a merger by necessity to remain competitive.

Separately, in the land of potential tech IPOs, Okta, the identity management startup, has been moving toward the public markets, as noted by The Wall Street Journal, and has been looking for an assistant controller who can support reporting requirements that stretch across both pre- and post-IPO environments. That comes a year after a $75 million capital raise that valued the firm at $1.2 billion.

Speaking to the general environment for unicorns jumping onto the IPO bandwagon, Jackie Kelley, IPO markets leader for Ernst & Young, stated that post-Brexit and the U.S. elections, unicorns will likely feel a bit more sanguine about coming public. But IPOs, she stated, are going to be done with less of a management eye on raising capital than on attracting talent (and the prestige) that comes with being publicly traded.