# Uber to go public in 2019

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2018-12-13

fred-wilson, ipo, lyft, public-markets, startups, tech, uber, uncategorized, wall-street, wall-street-journal

---

Last week [it was announced](https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-lays-groundwork-for-ipo-1544231655) 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.

![image](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6ae734d7347f049af3c40c4135254c92.png)

Here are a few other interesting figures from [a WSJ article published in the fall](https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-proposals-value-company-at-120-billion-in-a-possible-ipo-1539690343?mod=article_inline):

\- 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](https://avc.com/2018/12/thinking-ahead-to-2019/).

_Figure:_ [_WSJ_](https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-proposals-value-company-at-120-billion-in-a-possible-ipo-1539690343?mod=article_inline)

---

*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/uber-to-go-public-in-2019)*