In the words of Jerry Maguire "we work in a business of tough competitors" and that makes it hard for investors to find sustainable returns on invested capital (ROIC). Companies like Amazon keep everyone on edge.

A…

Redfin (RDFN $12-14) is planning to come public this week. The company is basically an online platform for residential real estate sales.

Anyone familiar with this space would know that it's dominated by Zillow (ZG) which has…

PetIQ (PETQ $14-16) is a small (~$350M sales) growth company doing an $85M IPO with Jefferies and William Blair as lead underwriters. The deal looks solid given that the company is gaining share in the large and growing market of…

There’s huge pressure for large companies to modernize their IT infrastructure in the wake of the “Amazon-ification” of infrastructure by AWS.

Tintri (TNTR) is a cloud storage company trying to position themselves as an “enterprise cloud” provider. It’s a smart…

We like to take a look back at an IPO like Trivago (TRVG) six months after pricing and they have a quarter or two under their belt as a public company. This is also the time that IPO share lockups…

UPDATE: The Amazon $AMZN Whole Foods acquisition makes this post ring truer. If home delivered meal kits are a $1B+ business how long do you think it will be before Amazon leverages their purchase with this easy add-on? RIP $APRN…

Enterprise software maker Appian (APPN) priced their IPO at $12 yesterday and it traded to $15. It's a solid deal and still has more upside based on our IV model below. However, we take issue with many of their rather bold claims about…

If you're interested in AI then Veritone (NASDAQ: VERI $14-16) is an IPO you'll want to at least have a look at. It's a small deal led by three smaller banks - Wunderlich, Craig-Hallum and Northland. The larger firms wouldn't touch this…

The used car market is huge - around $700B (yes $B) and super fragmented. The top 100 players only control 7% of the market. It’s mainly structural - used cars have been sold more on a regional basis than nationally.

Investors have taken a shine to Floor & Decor (NYSE: FND). The deal was priced way above the $16-18 filing range at $21. The story is fairly simple - FND is like Home Depot for floor products. It’s a massive…

Exponential growth in data creates new demands for which traditional data management techniques like relational databases are not satisfactory. The pervasive nature of the internet and the so-called IoT has ensured that the exponential growth of data remains…

Just last week we posted that Software Infrastructure is Hot Again (and OKTA priced above the range at $17 and has moved up to $23). Less than a week later we have a story out of the Information about…

Software infrastructure is the gift that keeps on giving. It's arcane to most investors because unless you develop software it's hard to understand. The term "middleware" is often used because it sits behind applications and services that…

The Alteryx (NYSE: AYX) IPO is well-banked with co-leads Goldman and JP Morgan joined by a team of five research-oriented co-manager (PacCrest, Blair, JMP, RayJay and Cowen.) Price talk is $12 to $14 which puts the market capitalization at $750M at…

This week we have the IPO of Canada Goose (NYSE:GOOS). If you live in NYC or Boston you can't help but notice that everyone seems to be wearing these parkas.

How does a company that's been around since 1957 suddenly…

Despite the "retail winter" that Amazon (AMZN) has wrought on the industry, investors remain interested in finding defensible niches in the business. One meme that has gained some momentum is around "brands that control their product, distribution, and destiny." 

J.…

It’s high-noon for Snap and their bankers at the NYSE trading post. The consensus in the capital markets is that the deal will get down and open above the IPO price. Institutions consider Snap an IPO to…

Now that we've had a chance to puzzle over the Snap roadshow (you can see the Snap slides here and we have done a full transcript of the Snap roadshow)…

Snap is two things - 1) a new mobile communication platform that puts the camera and the microphone (rather than the keyboard, mouse and browser) at the center of everything and 2) an advertising company combining their platform technology with…

[UPDATE: May 4, 2017] So Twilio is losing a chunk of business from Uber, their largest single customer. It's a blow and it will impact the next few quarters. The shares took a big hit which is to be expected. At…

The pendulum of funding fashion appears to be swinging back from very large and expensive late-stage private rounds back to public markets. We witnessed the start of this trend in the second half of 2016 when investors marked down the…

Since we originally published a full report on Novan (NASDAQ: NOVN) the company has been delivering good results - recent Phase 2 results for genital warts from HPV were positive and ready for the next step into Phase 3. The…

The main IPO of interest scheduled for this week is Trivago (NASDAQ: TRVG). The $400M deal is being led by JP Morgan, Goldman and Morgan Stanley with 7 co-managers tacked on for good measure. Our Quick IV points to a share…

Acushnet (NYSE:GOLF) is the big daddy in the golf world. They make Titelist balls and clubs, along with FootJoy shoes. Titelist is the #1 ball in the game and FootJoy is the #1 shoe. TaylorMade (owned by Adidas) is also…

It's been a good year so far for enterprise technology IPOs. We've enjoyed Twilio (TWLO) and most recently Nutanix (NTNX) which priced high, opened higher and went on to impressive gains in the aftermarket. WE'

Coupa (COUP)…

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX) will be the latest hot new software infrastructure company to come public. They just priced 14.87M shares at $16 - that is above the increased proposed range of $13 to 15. This is a hot IPO.

We'll…

Tabula Rasa (TRHC) is a healthcare service provider with ~25% sustainable growth in recurring revenue, expanding gross margins and a model that is very likely to generate 20% EBITDA margins over the long term.

As you can see from the company…

e.l.f. Beauty (ELF) priced above their proposed range last night at $17. Capital markets have been whispering that the deal is "hot" for a while.

In short - the story is very good, the financials are not quite as stunning as…

There have been a slew of "advertising technology" companies in the IPO market over the last few years - Critio (CRTO), Rocket Fuel (FUEL), and the Rubicon Project (RUBI.) Criteo has held up the best while the others have faded away…

The Story - Everbridge (EVBG) provides software to enable organizations to rapidly respond more effectively to emergency situations, like natural disasters, terrorist attacks and school shootings to name some examples. (See the

Talend Software (TLND) priced their IPO above the range at $18. The company provides data integration software to enterprises who continue to struggle to manage and leverage their growing pile of data - big data, small data, cloud data, etc.

This Wednesday Impinj (NASDAQ: PI) is expected to price 4.6m shares at $12-14. RBC is leading the charge with four other banks. (Everyone should read the Impinj prospectus and IPO Candy subscribers can peruse the Impinj IPO slide deck.)

We wanted to take a moment to examine the performance of the IPO market so far this year and highlight some interesting trends with graphs and pictures. So far July looks like it will be a pretty good month so…

There are lots of eyes on the Twilio TWLO IPO this week. It’s scheduled to price tonight. So far the IPO market in 2016 has been dominated by healthcare deals. Normally we tend to have a more balanced mix with…

Healthcare claims processing is soul-crushingly complex. Recently the number of "codes" used went up 5x to over 68,000. At the same time there is tremendous cost pressure so every insurer wants to ensure claims are accurate and enforce payment policies.

Investors have found a lot to like with SiteOne Landscape Supply (NYSE: SITE). The company priced their IPO last night at $21, inside their proposed pricing range of $20-22.  To the delight of investors the SITE story is simple and…

In February we had the Editas (EDIT) IPO which doubled promptly in the market. The entire biotechnology world is enamored with the potential of these core gene-editing technologies.

One of the companies mentioned in our note: A CRISPR view of…

The deal priced below the range at $14. Since then the shares have been sitting around $13/share. Coverage should begin on or about May 17th and we expect the stock price to recover somewhat. Investors are mostly worried that…

Last night BATS priced a greater than expected number of shares at the high end of their IPO price range - $19/share. After a very slow market so far in 2016 the ice has been broken by a fairly large…

In the early days of Etsy a site sprang up called Regretsy that made me (and many others) laugh to the point of tears. Their tagline was “where DIY meets WTF” and it was simple but brilliant. They would find…