Emailed on March 29, 2019 in The Friday Forward

There's a stampede of private market unicorns headed for IPO and Lyft kicked off the bell ringing with authority. 

Lyft last night raised around $2.34 billion in its IPO, selling more shares than expected and pricing at the top of its upwardly-revised range.

This is the first $1 billion+ IPO on a U.S. exchange without Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley as an underwriter since JD.com went public in May 2014, per Renaissance Capital. The last U.S.-based issue was VMware back in August 2007, when Lehman Brothers was on the book.

Lyft and Uber are very different companies, particularly in terms of product and geographic focus. But Uber will, at least in part, be valued by investors on the revenue multiples set by Lyft. 

Expect the Uber IPO to be a monster if these trends hold.