Extra Crunch Tuesday: In first IPO price range, Airbnb's valuation recovers to pre-pandemic levels

Welcome to Extra Crunch Tuesday

Recent weeks have been flush with news from unicorns preparing to enter the public markets, like DoorDash, C3.ai and Airbnb, which plans to debut with shares priced between $44 and $50.

On a fully-diluted basis, the company could be worth $35 billion, but Alex Wilhelm used his column this morning to ask (and answer) the question: “what happens if we stack Airbnb’s revenues against its valuation today?”

I asked Alex if he anticipated so many debuts at the same time.

“The end-of-year IPO waved was whispered about for a month or so before all the S-1s dropped, but I wasn’t sure I believed it was coming,” he said.

“The new scuttlebutt is that 2021 is going to be even busier than 2020. Again, I’ll need to see it to believe it, but I’m allowing my hopes to rise just a little.”

Thanks for reading,

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

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C3.ai's initial IPO pricing guidance spotlights the public market's tech appetite

Enterprise-focused artificial intelligence company C3.ai filed an S-1 yesterday posting an initial price range of $31 to $34 per share, a move that value the company between $3.08 and $3.37 billion.

In his analysis, Alex tries to determine who benefits the most from if those numbers hold.

“After all, how do you value an unprofitable tech company that has hit a revenue plateau?”

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Join us for a live Q&A with Sapphire’s Jai Das today at 2 pm EST/11 am PST

Sponsored by TechCrunch

We’ll ask Das about the enterprise software M&A market, fundraising and more; bring your questions!

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DoorDash aims to add $11 billion to its valuation during public offering

Food-delivery unicorn DoorDash is aiming for a price range of $75 to $85 per share, “which would revalue the company sharply higher than its final private price,” Alex reported yesterday.

On-demand food services have benefited directly from consumers sheltering in place, but Alex examined DoorDash’s growth, revenue and overall performance to see if it’s targeting an overly aggressive price.

The fact that an unprofitable company with strong growth is setting its sights so high “is good news for unicorns,” but there’s more to the story, he found.

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Wall Street needs to relax, as startups show remote work is here to stay

There are at least two COVID-19 vaccines pending approval and distribution, but what does that mean for companies that have seen their fortunes rise during the pandemic?

Enterprise reporter Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm interviewed a number of analysts and tech executives and found that “remote work isn’t going anywhere.”

In a KPMG survey, 68% of CEOs said they plan to downsize offices, and 76% will continue expanding their use of digital collaboration tools.

“I get a strong sense people will go into an office 1-2 times a week to connect with the mothership but otherwise work from home or client offices,” said Dion Hinchcliffe, an analyst at Constellation Research.

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Is Slack overpriced now that the market knows Salesforce might buy it?

After news broke last week that Salesforce was considering a purchase of Slack, the collaboration tool’s market cap rose from $16.88 billion to $22.58 billion.

When I saw Slack’s stock chart, I literally laughed out loud; someone had a very happy Thanksgiving.

If Salesforce acquires Slack, it would transform its competitive dynamic with Microsoft, but given the price hike, Alex asks a savvy question:

“What do you have to pay to take a large chess piece off the software market’s board?”

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