On June 3, news reports carried the story that multiple investors (including big name institutional investors like Wellington & Fidelity) had invested $1.2 billion into Uber, a technology company that matches consumers to car services in many cities around the globe. Based on the investment (and the percentage of ownership that these investors were getting in exchange), the imputed value for Uber (pre-money, i.e., prior to the influx of $1.2 billion) was $17 billion, a mind-boggling sum for a business that generates a few hundred million in revenues and has little to show in terms of operating income. That said, Uber has lots of company in this high-value space, with Airbnb and Dropbox being two other companies that in recent months have been valued at more than $10 billion by investors. With all these companies, the key selling point is disruption, the latest buzzword in strategy, with company owners arguing that they are upending existing ways of doing business (hailing a taxi, with Uber, and finding lodging, with Airbnb) and given the sizes of the businesses that they were disrupting, that the sky is the limit on value.
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