A record year

[Bloomberg]( Hi, it’s Sarah McBride. The year 2021 is shaping up to be very, very good for startups and the venture capital industry. Measured by cash raised when VCs successfully guide their portfolio companies to an initial public offering or sale, 2021 is on track to be the most successful of all time. It’s also already one of the most absurd. Consider that just last Thursday, two companies with similar names, Zenvia Inc. and Zevia PBC, staged initial public offerings at similar prices, raised similar amounts of cash, [and saw similar declines](. The Zenvia chief executive officer said his investors had been warned by their bankers not to confuse the two. Thursday also saw the market debut of Couchbase Inc., a database software company, which rose about 30% in its first day of trading. That’s reminiscent of Coinbase Global Inc., the cryptocurrency exchange, which also rose about 30% when it listed in April. “It is getting to the point where we’re going to need multi-word names!” wrote angel investor Dan Scheinman in an email to Bloomberg, and who wouldn’t be drawn into lost-coins-in-the-couch puns. Scheinman backed video service Zoom Video Communications Inc., not to be confused with penny stock Zoom Technologies Inc. When some investors got confused anyway, helping [spike the stock price]( of the latter, the Securities and Exchange Commission [halted trading](. Although it might be tempting for any and every company to list while so many eager investors are buying shares, Scheinman counsels against it unless management believes its stock price will rise. “The whole purpose of the IPO should be to increase customer traction and momentum,” he said. That becomes a harder task when the stock price goes down. In the first half of this year, startups reached $372 billion in what VCs like to call “exits”—public listings or acquisitions by another company—according to analysis by tax and advisory firm EisnerAmper. That figure is already far higher than the $287.5 billion from all of last year. Some 89 U.S. venture-backed companies have held IPOs or listed directly on markets this year, with private backers who sold their shares reaping a cumulative $218.5 billion, according to PitchBook data. That compares to 105 companies for all of 2020, with $179.4 billion to backers. All this gives the creeps to investors who remember the dotcom bust of two decades ago. But Lise Buyer, founder of IPO advisory service Class V Group, said these numbers aren’t sure signs of a bubble. “Not all the IPOs are trading up day one,” Buyer wrote in an email. “Secondly, while many are moving up, we aren’t seeing the crazy get-me-in-at-any-price behavior that was prevalent last summer and in the fourth quarter of last year.” The best-priced deals are increasing around 15% to 20% on their first trading day, which Buyer called “a really healthy position.” Couchbase and Facebook Inc. backer Kevin Efrusy, an emeritus partner at venture firm Accel, took a measured tone that contrasted with the exuberance of many investors. “It often takes 5 to 10 years plus to build the foundation for strong companies,” he wrote in an email. “So I don’t try and time public markets much.”  —[Sarah McBride](mailto:smcbride24@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing Bloomberg Technology’s new newsletter about the video game industry, Game On, is [here](. Its first edition dives into the [culture crisis at Activision Blizzard](. Sponsored Content GEP commissioned a survey of over 400 senior business leaders from the world’s leading global enterprises to determine the real costs of supply chain disruptions. The impacts run deeper and wider than what most enterprises had anticipated. [Read the full report here >>]( GEP And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Face ID on the Mac could be coming within the next couple of years, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Sunday in his Power On newsletter. (subscribers only.) Meanwhile, Apple is navigating a [tricky return to the office](. China’s assault on its [private tutoring companies]( has scarred investors. Investor Jeremy Grantham warns that the meme stock crowd has it wrong, and that [nearly all companies]( are overvalued right now. Airbnb will share data on repeat party house offenders—but not on [violent crimes](.  The day traders are still [with us](. Follow Us More from Bloomberg It's time to Power On. A weekly newsletter by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman delivers Apple scoops, consumer tech news, product reviews and the occasional basketball take. [Sign up to get Power On]( in your inbox on Sundays.  Like Fully Charged? | [Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com](, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022