http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-32245

Yes Mack great post.

By the way, are vacuums considered to be small household tools?

Just did some digging around on tech startups and WallStreet with some fascinating numerical values.

Enjoy:
Jan. 23, 2014 10:51 a.m. ET

Introducing WSJ’s ‘Billion-Dollar Startup Club’ Interactive

By Douglas MacMillan

For private tech startups, notching a billion-dollar valuation used to signify entry into an exclusive club. Now it’s more like a party.

Some three-dozen companies make up the Billion-Dollar Startup Club, a new interactive online chart of the most valuable venture capital-backed companies created by The Wall Street Journal in conjunction with Dow Jones VentureSource. The Journal will update the list as companies move up, down, on and off.

To create the chart, we looked for closely-held technology startups valued at $1 billion or more with at least one venture capital firm as an investor. The companies must have raised financing in the past three years. With companies putting off initial public offerings in favor of ever-larger private rounds of financing, and VC firms willing to pay high price tags for businesses with little or no revenue, the club keeps growing.

The members range from U.S. software makers like Evernote, at $1 billion, and Dropbox at $10 billion; to hardware makers such as Woodman Labs, the $2.25 billion creator of the GoPro camera.

Overall, there are at least 25 billion-dollar companies in the U.S. — 19 alone valued at $1 billion in the past two years. That’s more than the membership during the dot-com bubble years of 1999 and 2000, when 18 such startups were in the club, according to and earlier analysis by VenturesSource. The companies in today’s era are generally more financially stable, though some companies in today’s club like Pinterest and Snapchat have yet to generate revenue.

In China, rising handset maker Xiaomi ties for the most valuable company on the list today, at $10 billion; while German e-commerce player’s funding last October put that company at $4.86 billion. There are another three companies in Europe, led by German online retail giant Zalando.

Which companies didn’t make the list? VentureSource primarily records valuations upon direct investments into companies by venture capitalists. That means the list excludes companies valued at more than $1 billion by a round of secondary funding – meaning, investors bought shares from employees or other investors rather than directly backing the company. Investors sometimes pay a premium in secondary rounds, and those values can fluctuate wildly if shares are traded in secondary markets. So the list excludes companies like Automattic, the maker of WordPress blogging software that was involved in a secondary round last September, valuing it at $1.1 billion.

Companies backed by private equity investors were also kept off the list. Business software provider SurveyMonkey, now worth $1.35 billion, was bought by Spectrum Equity and Bain Capital Ventures.

Another company, “Angry Birds” game maker Rovio, is reportedly projected to be worth several billions of dollars, but it hasn’t raised any new rounds of funding that value it at over $1 billion. The same with messaging service WhatsApp. Both of those could be added in the future after new investments.

To see all the members and compare their investors, valuations and funding rounds, click here.