Four months ago, OnDeck Capital’s IPO became the largest venture-backed exit in New York tech. But now, there’s a new big dog in town – and it’s not in Manhattan. Brooklyn-based Etsy’s IPO, which was valued at $1.8B and has ballooned to $3.5B after its first day of trading is now NY’s biggest VC-backed tech exit.
The online arts and crafts ecommerce marketplace counts venture investors including Index Ventures, Accel Partners and Union Square Ventures, which has notched an impressive six billion-dollar exits since the start of 2011.
New York also a deep bench of Tech IPO Pipeline companies so it will be interesting to see if more NY tech companie stest the public market waters in the coming months.
As the chart below highlights, the top two VC-backed tech exits in New York history occurred in the past six months.
| Company | Acquirer | Notable VC Investors | Year | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | Public | Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, Accel Partners | 2015 | $1.8B |
| OnDeck Capital | Public | First Round Capital, RRE Ventures, Village Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Google Ventures | 2014 | $1.32B |
| Tumblr | Yahoo | Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners | 2013 | $1.1B |
| Right Media | Yahoo | Redpoint Ventures, Yahoo | 2007 | $850M |
| Buddy Media | Salesforce | Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners, European Founders Fund, Institutional Venture Partners, GGV Capital | 2012 | $745M |
| Creditex Group | Intercontinental Exchange | Partnership Fund for NYC, Thomson Financial Ventures | 2008 | $625M |
| Shutterstock | Public | Insight Venture Partners | 2012 | $570M |
| Currenex | State Street Corp. | TH Lee Putnam Ventures, Barclays Ventures | 2007 | $564M |
| iVillage | Public | Technology Crossover Ventures, Time Warner Investments, Rho Ventures, Transatlantic Venture Partners | 1999 | $555M |
| Varonis Systems | Public | Accel Partners, Evergreen Partners, Pitango Venture Capital | 2014 | $524.4M |
Data Integrity Note: This list does not include private equity transactions or acquisitions that took place after an initial public offering. For example, Doubleclick which is often erroneously considered a billion dollar VC exit for NYC was not as it first IPO’d, then was acquired by private equity firms JMI Equity and Hellman & Friedman and then ultimately purchased by Google for $3.1B.
Note 2: We don’t consider companies that are based in NJ or CT to be part of these NY stats primarily because simply-stated, NJ and CT are not part of NY. That is why exits by the likes of Indeed, Sirocco Systems, etc are not included in this data.
Note 3: IPO valuations used are of the company at the opening of trading.
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