Unicorns Tread (Somewhat) Quietly Into Autumn

All quiet on the unicorn front this past week. Well, not completely.

While the rest of the world — that would be the public equities markets — sees roller coaster rides, up and then down, on the vagaries of interest rate hikes (or no interest rate hikes) from the Federal Reserve, unicorns were quietly treading through the days that lead into fall. Not as much news as has been seen in past weeks, but a few interesting tidbits nonetheless.

In the parlor game known as “who will IPO next,” Nutanix, the data storage provider, has filed an updated prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, where revenues, for the year that ended July 31 (that would be its fiscal year), grew a staggering 84 percent to $445 million. Some market watchers have said that the newly updated filing represents a renewed effort to go public — after all, would-be investors like to see numbers. Should the firm indeed bow on the public markets, this would be among the handful of tech stalwarts braving a new listing in 2016.

Separately, Indian eCommerce play Flipkart has said that it expects a product exchange program, slated to be held next month, to drive sales of large appliances during its Big Billion Day sale. Large appliances represent the third-largest product category for the firm after fashion and tech and can be as much as 10–15 percent of sales, executives told the financial press.

And in down-round news, Rocket Internet slashed its book value estimates for online furniture store Home24, a unit of the German startup incubator, to $475 million, as Home24 raised new capital (at €20 million).