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Xiaomi Lowers $100B Valuation Target Ahead Of IPO

Morning Report: Xiaomi has lowered its target valuation to between $70 and $80 billion ahead of its IPO.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Xiaomi, the China-based smartphone and Internet of things company, has lowered its valuation target ahead of its IPO from $100 billion to $70 to $80 billion amid concerns about declines in the current global tech market.

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This news comes as the company is looking to break records as the highest valued Chinese unicorn. The company’s last pre-money valuation was already $45 billion after raising a $1.1 billion round in 2014; however, reports were already doubting its worth given its losses in 2017, which Crunchbase News explored in detail last week.

If you’re just catching up, here’s some background on the company. Xiaomi was co-founded in 2010 by its current CEO Lei Jun, a successful, serial entrepreneur who sold his first company to Amazon.

Xiaomi initially prided itself on selling high-end smartphones at affordable prices through its massively hyped, online flash sale retail initiatives. Its community of fanatic users also drove its early staggering growth. The company more than tripled its sales volume from 2012 to 2014. However, that growth was not without competition and drama. The company was repeatedly accused of intellectual property theft by Apple and Samsung, and fell in the ranks in China as offline retailers in more rural communities took advantage of its brick and mortar absence.

Since then, the company has expanded its offline retail presence, invested in numerous companies dealing with the Internet of things—selling everything from wifi-enabled smart rice cookers to smart TVs—expanded its smartphone sales into global markets like India, and even became one of the world’s leading wearables companies.

Since its founding, the company has scored a known total of more than $3 billion in funding, with investors betting that its low cost smartphones and electronic devices are the winning ticket for a global Xiaomi. However, we will have to wait and see if the company will score big or live up to its name– “small rice.”

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Foundry Group files for $750M fund

  • Technology venture investor Foundry Group is seeking to raise up to $750 million for its latest fund, according to a securities filing. The planned fund, which would be Boulder-based Foundry’s largest ever, is the latest in a long list of new supergiant venture investment vehicles.

Early exits may offer higher returns

  • A Crunchbase News analysis of exit outcomes for seed- and venture-backed companies finds that the earlier a startup is acquired in the funding cycle, the more likely it will deliver larger multiples on invested capital. The data also showed that return multiples have leveled off in recent years.

Europe’s iZettle plans IPO

  • Stockholm-based iZettle, a provider of point-of-sale payment tools, is seeking to raise about $227 million in an IPO that would value the eight-year-old company at around $1.1 billion.

ThoughtSpot secures $145M

  • ThoughtSpot, a Silicon Valley startup developing analytics tools for corporate data, reportedly raised $145 million in a new round that values the company at over $1 billion. Backers include Sapphire Ventures, Lightspeed VenturePartners, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and the Australian Government Future Fund.

Illustration Credit: Li Anne Dias

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