As Uber and Lyft continue to melt, the 2019 unicorn class loses its shine

Published March 18, 2020

You’d be excused for feeling that mid-2019 was in a different decade as far as venture-backed IPOs go.

Last year saw a number of successful flotations of venture-backed technology and technology-enabled companies, and most performed well after they began trading. But despite some early success, a number of the most famous 2019 IPOs have seen their valuations decline rapidly in ensuing quarters.

In some cases, once richly valued public unicorns are off more than twice the market’s recent declines, have given up all their gains earned as public companies, or fallen under their final private market valuations. It’s a stunning reversal for several of the most-lauded companies to come out of the venture capital machine in a decade.