$UBER went public on Friday. Notwithstanding the initial stumble, Uber will go down in history as one of the most lucrative venture capital investments of all time.

The stock is down from its IPO price of $45 per share, but at that price, the initial seed investment of $510,000 that First Round Capital made back in 2010 was worth about $2.5 billion on Friday.

Here is a list of some of the other notable investors from Uber's seed round and what their initial investments grew to over the course of 9 years (chart from the WSJ):

Of course, for every Uber, there are many more failed companies. And for every investor who turns $5,000 into nearly $25 million, there are many more who decided to pass on the opportunity.

In the case of Uber, many early investors couldn't see how the product could go mainstream. It initially started upmarket with limousines, which was actually a clever way to hack the chicken-and-egg problem that plagues marketplaces.

Many also wondered how many metro areas outside of San Francisco had the kind of urban density and supply and demand drivers to support this kind of a service.

Today, some nine years later and many billionaires later, lots of people -- including myself -- are still wondering: Will Uber turn out to be a great (i.e. profitable) business? Hindsight is always 20/20.

Last week it was announced that Uber had confidentially filed for an IPO (right after Lyft did the same). It could go public as early as Q1 of next year. And supposedly, a valuation of $120 billion is being tossed around. The company last raised money in August of this year (from Toyota) at a $76 billion valuation.

Here are a few other interesting figures from a WSJ article published in the fall:

- Uber has indicated that it doesn’t expect to be profitable for at least another 3 years. This year it is expected to hit between $10 and $11 billion in revenue, compared to $7.78 billion last year.

- First Round Capital invested about $1.6 million in Uber’s first two fundraising rounds (2010 and 2011). If the company does in fact reach a valuation of $120 billion in the public markets, that early investment will be worth $5 billion. (First Round sold some of their shares to SoftBank in January and I’m not sure if the above figure accounts for that.)

- Over 50 companies have invested in Uber since its founding, not including a slew of individual investments from people like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

On a related note, Fred Wilson, who is far more knowledgeable on this topic than I, recently published a post talking about the relationship between the private and public markets and what could happen to (tech) valuations in 2019. 

It’s a good follow-on read to the above.

Figure: WSJ

Snap Inc. (Snapchat) nailed the launch of Spectacles. I want a pair.

If you haven’t been following, it all started with a pop-up vending machine in Venice Beach. But like Snapchat itself, it was an ephemeral installation that eventually disappeared, moving on to Big Sur, California. At the time of writing this post, the countdown is on to discover where the vending machine will pop up next. It’s a viral marketing play that aligns very well with their brand.

But there’s even bigger news.

Earlier this week it was revealed that Snap Inc. has filed for an initial public offering. It plans to go public by as soon as March 2017 and expects to be valued somewhere around $25 billion. Remember when everyone flipped out because Evan Spiegel had rejected Facebook’s acquisition offer of $3 billion?

Here’s their revenue story from Vanity Fair:

Last year, Snapchat brought in $59 million in revenue—a low number that reflected the embryonic stage of its business. This year, however, Snapchat predicts it will generate revenues between $250 million and $350 million. And in 2017, the company estimates it will reach revenues between $500 million and $1 billion, based on “bullish sales targets.”

I’ve been a Snapchat fan for awhile now, so I am thrilled to see the company going public. As Fred Wilson wrote on his blog this morning: “Snap is a great company led by a creative and ambitious founder and they have a loyal and growing use base. I think Snap can be an excellent public company.”

If you’ve got people’s attention, you can figure out how to monetize it.