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Expect More Durable Companies to Come to Market: Shaukat

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Bloomberg Sep 14, 2023 14:00 · 8247 Views

Tariq Shaukat, Sonar Co-CEO discusses Arm's IPO and how tech IPOs are cutting their valuations. He speaks with Romaine Bostick on Bloomberg Markets: The Close.

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Transcript

  • 00:00 Our next guest has plenty of experience taking a company public.
  • 00:03 He played an instrumental role in bringing Bumble to the public markets when he served as President of that company.
  • 00:08 Pleased to say he's joining us right now.
  • 00:10 Tarek Sharka joining us, he is now
  • 00:12 as we just learned today been named the Co CEO
  • 00:16 of a private company called Sonar.
  • 00:18 First of all, Tarek, congratulations on your new Co CEO role and I'd be remiss and not asking you right out of the gate
  • 00:25 as to whether
  • 00:26 this company
  • 00:27 ends up being a public company sometime soon.
  • 00:31 Well, thank you for having me and thanks for the congratulations.
  • 00:34 You know it's part of what attracted me to Stone Art is we are an open source technology company in
  • 00:40 the developer tool space.
  • 00:41 We have built on the backs of that community of 7 million developers that we have
  • 00:47 a really strong business, several $100 million revenue
  • 00:50 profitable.
  • 00:51 I think in this market in particular this is important a lot of free cash flow
  • 00:56 and it gives us the option to
  • 00:58 to to control our own destiny.
  • 00:59 Whether that's become a public company, whether it's continued to be private,
  • 01:03 we'll see.
  • 01:03 But we really feel like we're building a durable company for the future.
  • 01:07 I am curious about just how much the market has changed in terms of
  • 01:12 how these companies are valued whether it's in the private space or whether they do a go exit into an IPO here.
  • 01:17 We we've been talking about
  • 01:19 the down rounds
  • 01:20 for some of these names here.
  • 01:22 When you came to market with Bumble, I mean that seemed so long ago, but it was just in 20, 21 when a lot of people were kind of on the fence as to whether the market could absorb
  • 01:31 a major IPO like that.
  • 01:32 Do you think the time is right now for some of these names that we've been talking about?
  • 01:37 Well, I think the market has changed as you as you say and what the market was valuing in 2020 and 2021 which is really
  • 01:44 growth, that's what the market was valuing back in those days
  • 01:46 with.
  • 01:47 That has changed with Bumble.
  • 01:49 We actually took public a
  • 01:51 profitable
  • 01:53 high growth company with sonar
  • 01:55 here at the company.
  • 01:55 I've just joined this Co CEO.
  • 01:57 We are again emphasizing responsible growth, durable growth
  • 02:00 and really building a great business.
  • 02:02 And I think you see that with a lot of these
  • 02:04 IPO filings now that people are emphasizing
  • 02:07 profitability, they're emphasizing durability, they're emphasizing free cash flow
  • 02:11 and and really do they have a real business here or is it something that's just
  • 02:15 a lot of free capital has been pumping up over the years.
  • 02:18 I I think
  • 02:19 as we see the success of these
  • 02:21 of these flotations, we will see more and more
  • 02:23 of those companies, this durable companies really come to market.