The last half of 2015 and the first two IPO's of 2016 have been dominated by bio-tech. many of them have outperformed and some have even weathered the recent market weakness. Missing from all this excitement has been the Tech IPO's. 2015 was one of the slowest for new tech IPO's since 2009. So far 2016 does not look like the year that this trend changes. We thought we would take a look back and see how some popular tech IPO's along with recent IPO;s have performed. Consumer-focused tech and internet names like Twitter (TWTR ) which has lost over 32% year-to-date, GoPro (GPRO ), down 45% YTD, and Fitbit (FIT ) down 47% have all had well-documented declines. These were IPO's that the media hyped and investors flocked to, but never saw any traction.
Just last Friday, weak earnings and lower guidance caused Tableau Software (NADSAQ: DATA) to sink 50%, while LinkedIn (LNKD ) suffered a similar fate losing 44%. Similar earnings and guidance took New Relic (NEWR ) down 22% on Friday as well. Popular dating website, which went public in the fourth quarter 2015, Match Group (NASDSAQ: MTCH) missed its first earnings report as a public company and fell 26% last week alone.
With all this weakness from recent IPO's investors were quick to sell their shares of other high-growth, big loss tech names before the upcoming earnings announcements. Names like Hortonworks (HDP ) lost 20% on Friday and is now down a whopping 63% year to date, and Rapid7 (RPD ) -14% on Friday. Shopify (NASDAQ; SHOP) wasn't immune either but investors note the relative strength as sellers have resisted here. The popular tech name is only down 15% year to date.
A few more names to further drive the point home about IPO tech weakness: Atlassian (TEAM ), which blew out earnings and raised guidance, fell 16% on Friday, and now trades below its offer price. High-profile fourth quarter 2015 tech IPO's Pure Storage (PSTG ) finished last week down 28% from its IPO and Square (SQ ) -4% YTD are yet more casualties of the sell-off. The tech IPOs in the fourth quarter of 2015 faced intense valuation push back, but now only three of the nine trade above their offer price, and only one is up more than 4%, Adesto Technologies (IOTS ), which had to slash its valuation. The massive backlog of pre-IPO tech companies and their VCs can only watch in horror and conclude: These are extremely tough times for tech.
