Payments company Square this morning revealed plans to price its IPO shares lower than where it had last raised money in the private markets, leading some to suggest that the company’s new value is illustrative of the tech bubble beginning to deflate. But venture capitalist Marc Andreessen views it differently.
In a series of tweets, Andreessen suggested that a real tech bubble can only exist if irrational exuberance has extended to the public equity markets – where most tech company value lies – and that Square’s relatively modest pricing expectations are evidence that it has not:
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/662666978834800640
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/662667512765530113
Indeed, Square’s existing backers seem to have gotten a bit ahead of Wall Street in terms of price – though its fully-diluted valuation (at the mid-point of its proposed IPO range) would still be higher than its last private rounds.
However, Square still is expected to have an initial market cap of around $4 billion, despite having no profits and slowed growth. So while the public markets might not be pumping up a bubble like Andreessen’s private market peers, that doesn’t mean that they’re completely devoid of hot air.