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A pair of technology firms—Eventbrite and Upwork—have taken steps toward going public in the U.S., the latest sign that more privately held, richly valued companies see the initial-public-offering market as an attractive venue for raising capital.
Both of the California companies, the first, a platform for event planning and the second, a site that connects freelancers to job leads, are expected to go public in the second half of this year, said people familiar with their plans.
If the companies move forward with IPOs, they would join a host of other private technology firms that have received large amounts of private capital that have recently entered the public markets, including Spotify Technology SA SPOT, +0.13% , Dropbox Inc. DBX, +6.06% and Zscaler Inc ZS, +0.88%
In recent weeks, bankers say there has been a steady drumbeat of so-called bakeoffs, in which companies interview potential underwriters to help them prepare for a IPO. Because of this activity, bankers and other market participants are now expecting a busy second half of 2018 for IPO activity.
Eventbrite has processed more than $8 billion in gross ticket sales since it was founded in 2006. The company has raised more than $300 million since its founding from investors including Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Tiger Global, and has been valued at more than $1 billion, according to Wall Street Journal reports.
Upwork is a marriage of two freelancing websites: Elance, founded in 1998, and oDesk, founded in the early 2000s. The two companies announced plans to merge in late 2013 and were renamed Upwork in 2015. They have collectively raised more than $100 million in funding from investors including T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Capital, and FirstMark Capital.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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