Get Ready for a Flood of Big Tech IPOs

In 2019, expect to see the most American tech mega-listings of any year this century. Uber Technologies Inc., last valued at $72 billion, says it’s planning an initial public offering. Rival Lyft Inc. ($15.1 billion) aims to go public by summertime, and office chat software maker Slack Technologies Inc. expects an IPO valuation north of $10 billion as soon as it can show full 2018 financial results, according to people familiar with the matter. Add to the maybe pile Airbnb Inc. ($31 billion), which a person familiar with the company has said is targeting sometime between June 2019 and the end of 2020.

The last time three 11-figure U.S. tech companies went public in the same year, Bill Clinton was president and Apple Inc. was worth less than 1 percent of Microsoft Corp. That was 2000, when, with air leaking out of the dot-com bubble, the company that made the Palm Pilot was valued at $21 billion, and AT&T Corp.’s wireless subsidiary went public at a record-breaking $68 billion. Startups with questionable roads to profitability have been spending more time as private companies over the past decade, mostly because they can. With investors such as SoftBank Group Corp.’s $100 billion Vision Fund able to write check after check, raising cash via private share sales remains more attractive than going public, which entails added disclosure and scrutiny.