The IPO markets are starting to pick back up after taking the last few weeks off for the holiday season. Despite the weakness in the broad markets, there are still companies gearing up for their initial offerings. Though there are no offerings up for grabs this week, 2019 has many high-profile names that either want to go public or will have to IPO as pressure from initial investors mounts.
A benchmark for 2019 will be 2018's performance of the IPO markets. 2018 was a good year overall for debuting companies, though most names were pressured to lows during the end-of-year selloff. There were a total of 190 names that went public last year, which was just slightly higher than 2017's 160 IPOs. The total amount raised was the major focus, coming in at just over $47 billion. This was a 30%+ increase from 2017. Much of the proceeds went to Chinese offerings as well as biotech IPOs.
The Chinese string of offerings continues here in 2019 with Powerbridge Technologies (NASDAQ: PBTS) and their $15 million offering. This is a trade management provider and software services company based in Zhuhai, China. Their filing shows that they have revenue over the last 12 months of $23 million.
Another interesting filing comes from the online gaming platform, Super League Gaming (NASDAQ: SLGG) out of California. As gaming becomes more and more popular here in the states, Super League hopes to expand their offering with a $25 million IPO. At only four years old, this is a young company, but it had over $1 million sales in the last year.