ALEXIATSOTSIS
Very very quietly (there is almost no Google footprint), investment bank and securities firm Goldman Sachs held its “Private Internet Company Conference” this week in Las Vegas. During the two-day conference, which lasted from November 29-30th, a gaggle of companies presented their business models to an elite audience composed of bankers, investors and peers.
Attendees listened to talks given by A16Z‘s Marc Andreessen and Square’s Keith Rabois (who gave the keynote on Tuesday night). SV Angel’sRon Conway was also there, being himself. All in all the experience was very, very fun I heard. Makes sense.
So why hold a conference for early stage companies if you’re an IPO underwriter? Well, the event basically functions as an extremely foresighted form of lead generation. According to multiple people I spoke to, these are the 30 or so startups Goldman has designated as potential IPO candidates. And it wants to make a relationship as early on as possible, in case some of them actually do and need Goldman’s services in the process.
So who are these white-hot startups then? Well here you go! (I might be missing one or two, so if you’re on this list or know of someone who should be on this list, please email me and I will put you/them on if your story checks out.)
In alphabetical order:
Facebook will make its long-anticipated move to go public between April and June 2012, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
The report, which cites “people familiar with the matter,” says that Facebook is considering raising $10 billion in an IPO that could value it at more than $100 billion. This is consistent with a report in June that used the same eye-popping number of zeros to describe Facebook’s expected valuation.
If realized, the valuation would make Facebook’s IPO one of the largest in history — more than four times as big as Google’s $23 billion IPO in 2004, and likely one of the 10 largest IPOs of all time.
While the first rumors of Facebook’s impending IPO predicted that the company would go public during the first quarter of 2012, recent reports had suggested that the offering had been pushed back to “September or later.”
The Wall Street Journal‘s sources cautioned that Facebook has not made any final decisions in its internal discussions about the timing of its filing — and that market conditions will ultimately determine how much money the company seeks and the value of the company.
Mashable has contacted Facebook for comment and will update this article with any additional information.
Company: MoviePass
Founders: Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watts
Location: New York, NY
Funding: Raising a round now and is backed by AOL Ventures, True Ventures, Lambert Media, Moxie Pictures, Brian Lee, Diego Berdakin, MJ Eng, Ryan Steelberg and Adam Lilling.
Why it's innovative: MoviePass lets users attend all of the movies they want in theaters for a fixed price. It's great for theaters, which have been having trouble getting people in seats. It also collect data on movie goers.
If MoviePass takes off, it could cast aside sites like Fandango and become an entirely new way for movie buffs to purchase tickets.
“By the weekend I had multiple term sheets and by Monday we had closed our round with exceptional investors that I could only dream about.”
Shafqat Islam, Founder
“80% of our investors came through AngelList, including our lead investor, the Silicon Valley legend Mitch Kapor.”
Matt Mireles, Founder
