Ringing in the New Year with the Promise of Mobile Tech IPOs

Expectations were low for tech IPOs in 2016 — driven in large part by the slow plateau and declining userbases of former stars like Twitter and GoPro. While the tech sector as a whole continued to thrive, public companies floundered, driving a general suspicious outlook on publicly traded mobile app companies on Wall Street.

But just when it seemed like we were bunkering down for a down year, along came Twilio — whose stock doubled within just a few hours of going public — and a rush of equally surprising success stories including Line. Before long, investors were back on board the tech train, with just one problem: only 13 tech companies went public throughout the year, in spite of dozens of promising candidates primed and ready to enter the market. That leaves some mobile app developers in a promising position for 2017, and rising stock prices across the board in recent months have investors eager to see what the new year will bring.

While mobile app developers in NYC and across the US have been wary of the Trump administration’s approach to tech, the outcome could easily be a positive one, at least in the short term. Leaders from Amazon, Facebook, and other tech giants have already met with the incoming administration to determine how best to serve users and developers in the coming four years, and the buzzword everyone is talking about is “deregulation.” Regulatory burdens have been holding back small startups for years, and while provisions in the 2012 JOBS Act have been a godsend in some regards, app developers are hoping to see further deregulation, particularly when it comes to fostering communication between equity research analysts and bankers.

Will political changes coupled with rapid advances in new consumer areas like VR and AI drive a stock market rise reminiscent of the original tech boom? Or will we see prices start to level out as this year’s success stories give way to next year’s challenges? Only time will tell, but investors and app developers are optimistic for what 2017 will hold.