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welcome to the ukbusinessupdates.com Exchange, a weekly newsletter for startups and markets. It is inspired by the daily ukbusinessupdates.com+ column from which it takes its name. Do you want it in your inbox every Saturday? Register here.
Since most startups are repriced behind closed doors, we love getting data that gives us a glimpse of what’s going on. This week comes our new information from EquityZen, who shared insights on secondary stock sales. EquityZen also made some IPO predictions that gave us food for thought. Let’s investigate. — Anna
A glimpse of repricing
How do you know when a unicorn has lost its billion dollar value? Usually, you don’t find out until long after when — and if — the company is raising a downturn that makes it clear that equity valuation is no longer in the unicorn realm.
The thing is, not many founders want to advertise that they raised capital at a lower valuation than their previous round; in most cases, they simply won’t disclose their new valuation.
As market observers, this leaves us with little data on a topic our readers do care about: what kind of price revision to expect. That’s why we were thankful to Instacart, who made it public that it lowered its rating by way of a 409A price change. This wasn’t good news, but it was a useful data point for everyone involved. However, that was in March.
