Almost exactly two years ago, at Bloomberg LP’s headquarters in New York City as part of Social Media Week, I gave a talk titled “What in the World?” I overviewed demographic and economic trends globally and outlined the opportunity for technology companies to access growth in the emerging markets.
Suddenly, everyone’s worth a billion dollars. Or so it seems. Last week, a chart in the Wall Street Journal listed private companies globally that have raised capital at $1 billion-plus valuations from venture capital firms. Some, such as Chinese mobile company Xiaomi, were founded less than five years ago while others such as Good Technology have been around for more than a decade. A couple of days later, the Journal reported that Snapdeal, an Indian e-commerce site, was in talks to raise a round of financing (led by Credit Suisse) that would potentially value the company at $1 billion.
I have a few observations from the just-announced Google $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, a Silicon Valley based company that sells “smart” thermostats and smoke detectors:
