Do you like a good “rags to riches” story?
I hope so, because today I’ve got 161 of them for you—and thanks to some recent trends in the world of start-up investing, your story could be next.
Let me explain:
When a start-up is just getting off the ground, it hardly looks like a company at all: tiny team, no product, no revenues…
But some of these tiny enterprises turn into billion-dollar start-ups. And when that happens, their early investors can become outrageously rich.
Fortunately for you, you’re living—and you’re investing—at a time when the number of these billion-dollar babies just keeps growing and growing…
And as you’ll learn today, so are your opportunities to profit from them.
Unicorn Season
Have you ever heard the term “Unicorn” to describe a start-up?
In the investment world, it refers to a company worth more than $1 billion.
About eight months ago, I wrote an article about these billion-dollar babies.
At the time, there were 128 of them in existence.
Four months later, there were 144 of them.
Today, there are 161 of them.
This is a recent phenomenon. It’s part of a new era in the investment world.
In fact, if you look back at private companies in the year 2000, you’ll find that just 10 of them were valued at more than $1 billion.
But now—and for the foreseeable future—it’s Unicorn Season.
Let’s take a look why…
The Reason These Billion-Dollar Start-Ups Exist
If you’re a long-time Crowdability reader, you might already be familiar with the two big trends driving the growth of unicorns:
Trend #1: Staying Private Longer – In the year 2000, the average amount of time between a company being founded and going public in an IPO was 6 years.
Today, that number is closer to 10 years.
Those four extra years allow a company to build its business to a more mature stage—and allow it to increase its value dramatically.
Privately-held Uber, for example, is about six-years-old and is already worth an estimated $60 billion. In markets of old, Uber would have gone public years ago…
But because it’s Unicorn Season, Uber can forego an IPO until it’s good and ready.
Trend #2: Ability To Raise Money in the Private Markets – There’s a simple reason companies like Uber are able to delay their IPOs:
Instead of accessing growth capital from the stock market, they can access it in the private market.
You see, mutual fund companies like Fidelity and big hedge funds like Tiger Global are pulling back on their stock market investments so they can allocate more capital to the private markets instead. (Tiger, for example, recently raised two separate $1.5 billion funds to back private companies.)
Taken together, these two trends lead to an inevitable conclusion:
More and more of a company’s value is being created when it’s still private.
And that is why all these private companies are already worth billions.
Imagine If You’d Invested In These Unicorns
When Uber was just getting started a few years ago, it didn’t look like much…
It was just another start-up with a tiny team and a big vision.
To fund its growth, it raised money from investors like you on AngelList, a crowdfunding platform. And those investors have been rewarded handsomely:
A $1,000 investment is now worth an estimated $6 million.
Then there’s Zenefits, a software company that focuses on Human Resources…
When it was just getting started in 2013, it raised money on a crowdfunding platform called WeFunder. At the time, it was valued at $9 million.
Less than two years later, its value had grown to $4.5 billion—and a $1,000 investment was worth half a million dollars.
Those are just a couple of “rags to riches” stories…
And we’re thrilled that many of Crowdability’s subscribers have already profited from them.
Actually, let me introduce you to one of those subscribers right now…
Meet Marie M.
Each week, we get hundreds of emails from our readers.
Lately, more and more of them look like this:
“Thank you, thank you, thank you [...] Elio was very profitable for me. Keep those deals and newsletter coming. You guys rock!” —Marie M.
As you can see, Marie is already using Crowdability to help her invest in the private markets—in fact, she’s already used it to make a killing.
Now we’d like to help you do the same.
To that end, in the coming weeks, Wayne and I will be making a major announcement. It involves the launch of a very exciting project.
This is something we’ve never done before—in fact, I don’t think anyone has done this before.
To make a long story short, we’ll be giving a small group of people the chance to make a great deal of money—returns like 100% to 1,000%.
In the coming days, we’ll fill you in on the details. But before we do, we’d like to ask you a favor: if you could answer three quick questions, it would help us out a lot.
To answer the questions (and to get more details on the exciting news ahead) click here »
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
