Square IPO priced at 30 percent discount to last private funding

By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Mobile payments company Square Inc set a price range on Friday for its highly anticipated initial public offering that values the company at up to $4.2 billion, a 30 percent discount to its valuation at its last fundraising round. San Francisco-based Square, which is headed by Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, is one of the most prominent “unicorns,” or private companies valued at more than $1 billion, to make a public debut this year

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Twitter to pay Kordestani annual base salary of $50,000

(Reuters) – Twitter Inc said it would pay new Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani an annual base salary of $50,000 and a one-time grant of options to buy 800,000 shares of the microblogging website operator. Kordestani's appointment was a move by Twitter to allay concerns about Dorsey's dual role as head of mobile payments company Square Inc.

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Exclusive: Silicon Valley IPO market boom winding down

Last year, many tech IPOs enjoyed soaring valuations in their Wall Street debut, raining cash on the companies and their investors and boosting concerns about another Silicon Valley bubble. Now, the party is winding down, according to data analyzed by Reuters: Five of the 12 U.S.-based tech companies that went public this year, or 42 percent, priced their shares at a valuation below or nearly the same as their private market value, compared to 24 percent of the 29 that went public in 2014. “People are no longer out of their minds with valuations and expectations,” said Adam Marcus, managing partner at OpenView Venture Partners in Boston

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Square could take hit on IPO with Jack Dorsey leading Twitter

By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The much anticipated initial public offering from Silicon Valley payments company Square could take a price hit if its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, takes a second and possibly more demanding job: running Twitter. “Management and management focus are the single most determining factor of the success or lack thereof of a company pursuing an IPO,” said Lise Buyer, an IPO consultant with Class V Group in Silicon Valley who also helped guide Google Inc's IPO

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Online meal firm HelloFresh prepares for listing this year: sources

By Arno Schuetze and Alexander Hübner FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Online meal preparation firm HelloFresh is readying a stock market listing this year as it seeks to capitalize on buoyant equities markets and investor appetite for the Internet food market, according to three people familiar with the matter. Majority owner Rocket Internet and co-investors have mandated Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to organize the listing, the sources said.

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Airbnb hires Blackstone CFO Tosi: Bloomberg

The San Francisco-based company, one of Silicon Valley's most successful start-ups since it was founded five years ago by a trio of graduates, has so far snubbed an initial public offering in favor of ever-larger private fundraising rounds. Tosi's appointment, however, would better position the company to go public.

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Software developer Apigee Corp files for IPO

(Reuters) – Apigee Corp, a developer of software to manage Web applications, has filed with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering, looking to take advantage of interest in companies that offer Internet-related services. Apigee’s filing on Friday comes nearly two months after the successful listing of online storage company Box Inc and a day after Web-hosting company GoDaddy Inc’s proposed IPO valued it at up to $2.87 billion

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