menlo park california as billions of dollars flow into privatelyheld companies the number of new tech ipos in the us has shrunk dramatically compared to the pre2000 era scott kupor partner and coo at andreessen horowitz one of silicon valleys newest and hottest venture funds managing 27 billion in assets says this trend is here to stay in a oneonone chat with toi at its headquarters on sandhill road menlo park a veritable venture capital office spacekupor talked about trends in venture investing why his firm with investments across facebook airbnb pinterest and lyft among many others hasnt set foot in india and soaring valuations of tech startups excerptsyouve been writing about how tech companies are staying private in your blog posts tell us why this trend is so prominent now if you look at the data it used to be four years from the time a company was venturefunded to when it went public during 1970 to 2000 but now its nine years on an average also the number of ipos has dropped precipitously last year was a good year when we had 50 tech ipos versus 350 in 1999 today you have a confluence of two things companies want to stay private longer and financing sources are willing to make that happen is the trend of staying private here to stay well have a long period of companies staying private this is not a trend thats going away at least not in the usif you look at some of the financing rounds that have happened most of these would have gotten done in the public markets now even the traditional public market investors like the big hedge funds and mutual funds are seeing that most of the exciting things are happening in the private markets and therefore they are shifting their dollars these billion dollar financing rounds are being called pseudo ipos india is seeing a lot of them will these valuations reflect in the public market so far its been the case with few exceptions like zynga where one financing round was higher than what it ever saw in the public markets the reason for that is when you look at the way investors are valuing these companies its no different from how they price ipos so if im a fidelity or a t rowe price ive to buy into the ipo anyway but if i get in now i average down on costs it helps me have a bigger position at the underwriting table and be a longterm shareholder what does it mean for vc firms like you as more companies stay private most of the money that we raise is for the long term whether its university endowments foundations they all have a 50 year plus time horizon also our funds have a minimum of ten years plus gestation period the vc business is structured to handle longer periods of companies staying private where you have to be able to play well