Today’s Pill (11): Re our RPA darling, will they skip the traditional IPO in favor of a direct listing?

The IPO and direct listing market has been hot in 2Q, and we’ve all noticed Slack’s public debut last Thursday and Accel’s massive homerun. Among all the VC firms, Accel is definitely one of the top (three) winners, as they profited more than any other firm from the recent wave of VC-baked IPOs. Accel is Slack’s biggest backer, and only a few days ago they’ve also scored big on CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company, where they own some 20% post-IPO; additionally, like three months ago, PagerDuty went public, with Accel owning some 10.8% post-IPO. Moreover, Accel was also a backer of Spotify before the streaming company’s direct listing last year, and of DocuSign (IPO’d in 2018.) Other VC firms that have banked big profits from the multiple offerings in recent weeks are Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Daniel’s RPA UiPath is part of Accel’s current portfolio, so my question is not if our darling will float this year or next, but whether they’ll conduct a direct listing and forgo the traditional IPO without any underwriting and without raising new cash, as their coffers must already be filled with gold. Personally, I wish they’ll do it this year, and, please, just let it be by a direct listing.