These are the highest valued private companies according to available information sources. Facebook has the highest valuation at $100 billion, followed by Twitter at $9.5 billion. Most of these companies have raised significant funding rounds that have driven up their valuations. Their ownership is controlled by founders and venture capitalists. The high valuations and large employee shareholder bases create opportunities for shares to be traded in private markets. The document also evaluates methods for estimating valuation ranges for companies based on their latest funding rounds.

1. Private companies with the highest valuation
Valuation Total funding Share price IPO Crunchbase
Facebook Social web $ 100 bn $ 2.24 bn $ 44 Announced info
Twitter Micro $ 9.5 bn $ 1.16 bn $ 18.5 info
blogging
Bloom Clean Tech $ 2.2 bn $ 400 mln $ 18 info
Energy
Gilt Consumer $ 1.1 bn $ 221 mln $ 28 info
web
Yelp Search $ 1.6 bn $ 56 mln $ 13 -14 03/02/12 info
Dropbox Cloud $ 4 bn $ 257 mln $ 9.05 info
computing
Square Mobile $ 1 bn $ 168 mln $ 57.98 info
Payments
LivingSocial Consumer $ 2.9 bn $ 808 mln info
Web
(Source: Cunchbase, Techcrunch, Business
3/1/2012 1
insider , corporate filings, Bloomberg)

2. Private Shares
These are the highest valuated private companies traded in the secondary market. Information comes from a number of sources, we’ve
collected it and displayed in an orderly manner. An important source are the Articles of incorporation duly filed with US authorities by
the companies.
Generally the valuation of the company has been driven up by a number of increasing successful financing rounds.
www.crunchbase.com is a useful tool to check details on this matter.
The ownership firmly controlled by a group of founders and venture capitalists. Nevertheless a large private shareholders base has
been created by extending stock plans to the employees.
This factor, together with a high valuation, opens opportunities for liquidity in the otc market of private shares.
When information on valuations is not available the aggregated value of all financing rounds can be assumed as a leading indicator to
assess the growth and success of a company.
The following summary is an extension to the list with other promising private companies which achieved good level of financing.
A sort of assessment of the company’s value could be made by mean of a rough rule of thumb , which is worth describing.
The amount of cash raised in the latest round of financing (LRF) can be used. When rounds are already a few and the company is
already 2 years old and growing , the amount of ownership given away with a further round of financing rarely tops 10% , mostly is
around 5%.
The range where the company’s value is likely to lay is LR/10% and LR/5%.
Examples.
For Pinterest the latest round of financing was $ 27 mln ( www.crunchbase.com/pinterest) , the company’s value is likely to lay
between $ 270 mln and $ 540 mln.
For Tumblr the latest round was $ 85 mln (www.crunchbase.com/tumblr ), the range is $ 850 mln - $ 1.7 bln
Giuseppe Palmisano
Head of Private Shares
Vantage Capital Markets LLP
London
(Sources: Cunchbase, Techcrunch, Business
3/1/2012 2
insider , Articles of Incorporation)

3. Private companies up and coming
Total funding N. of Age (yrs) Crunchbase
funding
rounds
GreatPoint Energy Clean Tech $ 562 mln 5 7 Info
Bigpoint Gaming $ 420 mln 9 2 info
LightSaquared Wirless Tech $ 265 mln 1 <1 info
Spotify Entertainment $ 183 mln 4 2 info
Box.com Cloud $ 159 mln ... 6 info
computing
Tumblr Social $ 125 mln 5 4 info
/Comnsum. web
Foursquare Social web / $ 71.4 mln 3 3 info
mobile
Hulu Web TV $ 100 mln 2 5 info
(Source: Cunchbase, Techcrunch, Business
3/1/2012 3
insider , corporate filings, Bloomberg)

4. Private companies up and coming
Total funding N. of Age (yrs) Crunchbase
funding
rounds
Klout Web measures $ 40 mln 4 3 Info
Zocdoc Healthcare web $ 95 mln 3 3 info
Pinterest Consumer web $ 37.5 mln 3 2 info
Twilio Mobile/wireless $ 33.7 mln 4 3 info
Yammer Enterprise social $ 142 mln 5 3 info
web
fab.com Comnsumer web $ 51.3 mln 6 2 info
(Source: Cunchbase, Techcrunch, Business
3/1/2012 4
insider , corporate filings, Bloomberg)