If you’re hiring your first five engineers and you tell them you’ll be still private and raising a Series J in twelve years, how many would walk out on the spot? - ThreadSky

quinnypig.com • 36 days ago

If you’re hiring your first five engineers and you tell them you’ll be still private and raising a Series J in twelve years, how many would walk out on the spot?

Reposted from Techmeme

Data analytics startup Databricks closed its $10B Series J, announced in December 2024 and including investment from Meta, and raised $5.25B in debt (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

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Comments

wblummis.bsky.social•36 days ago

If they get to series Z, does it wrap around and go to series AA or do we start with Greek letters or something?

irwinfletcher.bsky.social•36 days ago

I think the rule book states that if the company gets to series Z, they win. Game over.

zellyn.com•36 days ago

Dunno, ask the folks who were stuck at Uber for like 50 years…

crawshaw.io•36 days ago

Their raise in 2024 was described as "non-dilutive" which suggests a large tender offer at a great valuation. Employees can do really well out of those. There are similar companies, like Stripe.

crawshaw.io•36 days ago

Put another way: the only reason to take on the accounting and regulatory burdens of becoming a publicly traded stock by retail investors is because it is the cheapest way to raise money. If the private deal is close enough to the public deal, there's no reason to go public.

somerandomdave.bsky.social•36 days ago

Presumably, the ones who stay are the reason for not being ready to go public 12 years later.

vickyharp.com•36 days ago

I got caught up in a place like that and there was this while rigamorole at 10 years when they had to reissue our older options because they had expired. And then they decided to sell to private equity.