Tech finance 2014: Big IPOs, big valuations, big acquistions
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2014 was a big year in tech finance, headlined with multibillion-dollar acquisitions, valuations and mega IPOs, including Alibaba, the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history.
The highlights:
In January …
Dropbox received a new private investment round that valued the cloud storage company at $10 billion.
In March …
Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus VR for almost $2 billion. Oculus was cofounded by home-schooled Palmer Luckey in his parents’ Long Beach garage. Original funding came from Kickstarter.
An AirBnB investment round pegged total company value at more than $10 billion, which seems to be a popular sum.
Food ordering service GrubHub, cloud computing company Arista and health technology firm Castlight Health went public.
In June …
Action camera manufacturer GoPro went public.
In August …
Amazon bought video streaming platform Twitch for $970 million.
Snapchat, the Venice-based disappearing message app-maker, reached a $10-billion valuation based on a new investment round.
In September …
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba scored the biggest U.S. IPO ever. The market valued the company at $220 billion, with $22 billion of that amount landing on the company’s balance sheet.
PayPal was spun off from Ebay.
In October …
Facebook closed a $21.8-billion deal for WhatsApp.
In December …
Google bought 12 acres in Playa Vista, vastly expanding its Los Angeles presence.
In a jaw-dropping investment round, ride-hailing company Uber was valued at $40 billion.
Lending Club went public in the biggest IPO by a California company in 2014 with a valuation of $8.5 billion.
Investors value Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi at $46 billion.
