Adtech star­tups in the pre-IPO phase are prov­ing to be a hot com­mod­i­ty among investors, with star­tups like Rubi­con Project show­ing healthy stock increas­es from day one. As the adtech sec­tor grows, so does inter­est from investors. Find­ing the next big thing in terms of pre-IPO adtech star­tups involves a set of met­rics which bal­ance rev­enues and the num­ber of employ­ees against investor fund­ing and rep­u­ta­tion, while also deter­min­ing which com­pa­nies are ripe for IPO entrance.

Rec­og­niz­able Names in Adtech Startups

Pin­ter­est, one of the Big Three in social media is launch­ing its Ads API, which their imme­di­ate peers Face­book and Twit­ter both did in the months lead­ing up to their IPOs. Cur­rent­ly, Pin­ter­est is respon­si­ble for up to one quar­ter of all incom­ing traf­fic to e‑commerce and online retail­ers’ sites. Oth­er like­ly can­di­dates include Flur­ry, and InMo­bi, which is among the largest non-pub­lic mobile ad busi­ness­es in the world. With an esti­mat­ed rev­enue of $372 mil­lion, rough­ly 900 employ­ees and a total ven­ture fund­ing of $216 mil­lion, InMo­bi is also less like­ly to be prof­itable than some of the hot pre-IPO adtech star­tups for 2014. Flur­ry CEO Simon Kha­laf is open­ly dis­cussing an IPO, telling Busi­ness Insid­er, “I con­sid­er an IPO an entrance. We don’t have a choice, our vol­ume is too high and our scale is too big for any­one to absorb us.”

Like­ly Pre-IPO Can­di­dates for 2014 Among Adtech Startups

There is a host of fac­tors which can indi­cate pre-IPO sta­tus among adtech star­tups. High­er num­bers of total employ­ees tend to indi­cate greater growth, as com­pa­nies who are hir­ing more staff mem­bers typ­i­cal­ly do so as a result of increased busi­ness. Those who have tak­en more fund­ing from investors are also under more pres­sure to IPO from investors who want to see ROI.

• xAd
• Flur­ry
• Sprin­klr
• Social­bak­ers
• Out­brain
• DataXu
• OpenX
• Undter­tone
• Pub­Mat­ic
• Ken­shoo
• AdRoll
• Vide­ol­o­gy
• Col­lec­tive
• Turn
• App­Nexus
• InMo­bi
• Pin­ter­est

These com­pa­nies are the hottest, and most like­ly to IPO among their com­peti­tors among adtech star­tups in 2014.  They are exhibit­ing all the clas­sic pre-IPO signs for 2014, and are posi­tioned to make an impact upon fil­ing for an IPO.

Pho­to cour­tesy of Flickr