Ben Gilbert of PSL and 'Acquired' on the red-hot market for IPOs, VC and acquisitions

Another day, another deal.

Keeping up with the flurry of acquisitions, IPOs, SPACs and venture capital these days is no easy task. In fact, IPO dollar volume for 2021 has already reached $171 billion, surpassing the record totals of last year. Same goes for mergers and acquisitions, with record levels of deal activity tracked for 2021.

The money is certainly flowing.

Washington state now boasts 11 "unicorns" — privately held companies boasting valuations of $1 billion or more. Many of them — such as Highspot, Zenoti and Outreach  —  have raised venture capital rounds of $150 million or more in the past six months. And each day here at GeekWire we're updating our funding list — not blinking an eye when a company announces $30 million, $40 million or $50 million in new funding.

Even more, we've tracked 32 IPOs, SPACs and acquisitions involving Pacific Northwest companies so far this year, including blockbusters like Okta's $6.5 billion purchase of authentication ID startup Auth0 and Twilio's $850 million acquisition of business texting startup Zipwhip. (See full list of deals here).

To help put the wild market in perspective, we're joined this week on the GeekWire podcast by Ben Gilbert, a co-founder at Seattle venture capital firm Pioneer Square Labs and the co-host of the Acquired podcast, an in-depth show that discusses the ins and outs of acquisitions and recently ranked as the number one tech show on Apple Podcasts.

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