糖心视频

Against all odds, the IPO boom has arrived.听

This week, four unicorn startups are making their public-market debuts, to be followed shortly thereafter by several more of the most highly valued U.S. private companies. They will join the that have gone public so far this year, including 10 venture-backed and tech companies, and , when Alibaba went public.

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, , and are all set to start trading on Wednesday or Thursday this week. Data mining unicorn is slated to begin listing on the New York Stock Exchange next week, and , the workplace collaboration company, plans to list the week after. is also still expected to go public later this year.听

Snowflake, the San Mateo-based data warehouse unicorn, is set to be the biggest of the bunch going public this week, with an initial valuation out the gate of around $22 billion.听

How the coming IPOs perform will be a big test of the stability and strength of the U.S. stock market as we head into the final quarter of what鈥檚 been a very weird year. We鈥檒l be covering their debuts closely, so follow along.

Our top stories last week

Among our readers鈥� favorite Crunchbase News stories last week:

• Crunchbase researcher Gen茅 Teare published her monthly recap of global startup and funding trends. Among the key takeaways: The 10 unicorn companies that filed to go public in August have collectively raised $30 billion and are valued at a combined $224 billion. There are now 616 unicorn startups globally, collectively valued at $2 trillion. That鈥檚 a lot, but also means that the most valuable startups in the world鈥攃ombined鈥攐nly equal one .
• Unit economics鈥攖hat is, focusing on things like cost per customer acquisition, customer churn and profitability鈥攁re more important than ever in assessing a startup鈥檚 health, startup adviser wrote in a guest column for us last week: 鈥淯nit Economics were not always in the investor鈥檚 mindset. 鈥�. (But) we鈥檝e witnessed a drastic pivot in the VC industry toward a more conservative result-based mindset. COVID-19 has made this even more apparent.鈥�

What I鈥檓 reading

If I seem to write too much about California鈥檚 future, please forgive me. I鈥檓 writing this column after a week of being locked inside, hiding from the smoke-choked skies outside and obsessively checking the air quality on .听

The raging fires on the West Coast have filled our skies with toxic smoke, taken numerous lives already, and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures鈥攁ll in the midst of a pandemic.

The wildfires , warns a new report prepared for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, a group with membership that includes banks, oil companies and asset managers.

鈥淎 sudden revision of market participants鈥� perceptions about climate risk could trigger a disorderly repricing of assets, which could have cascading effects on portfolios and balance sheets and, therefore, systemic implications for financial stability,鈥� the report said.

The link between the wildfires鈥攁lready this year California鈥檚 worst on record鈥攁nd climate change .听

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