Three comma club

If there is one thing that is currently in abundance in the US, it is a surfeit of cash. Corporate America is all set to close 2016 with a record cash hoard of $1.77 trillion, with technology companies holding almost half of it. Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco and Oracle are the top five whose coffers have swelled the most. It’s the same story in Silicon Valley where venture capital funds will end CY16 as a record-breaking year, having already raised $32 billion in the first three quarters.

Fuelled by innovation and cash, there are around 229 unicorns worldwide. These companies have collectively raised $175 billion and are now valued at $1.3 trillion. The impressive list has 21 decacorns — start-ups valued in excess of $10 billion. Uber, despite its decision to exit China, is still the largest, followed by the likes of Airbnb, Snapchat, Pinterest, Dropbox among others.

While the valuations continue to be eye-popping, venture capitalists are no longer opening their checkbooks like they did before. Marking the fifth straight quarterly decline, venture firms invested $15 billion in the third quarter of 2016. There has also been a dearth of exits. 2016 has seen 32 venture capital-backed IPOs compared with 76 in CY15. Only two Unicorns went public this year, forcing a majority of start-ups to stay private.

Venture capitalists might be struggling to spot ‘value’ or ‘exit’, but there are a whole host of start-ups working on the next disruptive innovation. To get a sense of what the Valley’s entrepreneurs were working on and what seasoned venture capitalists are funding, executive editor V Keshavdev and deputy editor Kripa Mahalingam travelled to the Bay Area to put together this special edition.

Healthcare, transportation and space research are the sectors where some really cool technology is in the works. It could not only transform our lives but also alter the way businesses are run. Though it is still early to know whether all these ideas will become a roaring success, for now, each of the 11 entrepreneurs profiled in this special issue definitely have an interesting story to tell.