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10 Companies That Are Probably Going Public in the Next Year

1. Uber

Uber

Year founded: 2009

VC money raised: $5.9 billion

Valuation: $42.8 billion

About: Perhaps no prospective IPO has been more fervently anticipated than that of Uber. As the second most valuable venture-backed company in the world -- second only to Chinese electronics company Xiaomi -- the ride-hailing platform currently operates in 57 countries. Uber is also eyeing a $2 billion round stateside and a $1 billion Chinese investment that could catapult its valuation to upwards of $50 billion.

2. Pinterest

Bloomua | Shutterstock.com

Year founded: 2010

VC money raised: $1.3 billion

Valuation: $11 billion

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About: Digital scrapbooking service Pinterest counts a reported 70 million users worldwide and most recently raised a $186 million Series G funding round in May. Despite the San Francisco-founded company’s rapid growth, CEO Ben Silbermann said last year, “We haven't been focused on [an IPO] right now, because I think it's pretty early for us. And I wouldn't say it's the end goal for the company.”

Related: What You Need to Know About Those New Blue Price Tags on Pinterest

3. Cloudera

Cloudera | Facebook

Year founded: 2008

VC money raised: $1 billion

Valuation: $4.1 billion

About: Cloudera is a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of Apache Hadoop software, which stores and processes data for businesses. Intel purchased an 18 percent stake in the company last year for $740 million, and Cloudera’s chief competitor, Hortonworks, went public in December.

“We’re of the size and scale that we could be a successful public company right now,” Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly said in February. “But we’re so well backed that we don’t need to go public to have access to financing.”

4. Moderna Therapeutics

officevideos | Youtube

Year founded: 2010

VC money raised: $863.9 million

Valuation: $3 billion

About: Moderna is a biotech company whose research revolves around messenger RNA to develop treatments for oncology, infectious and rare diseases. The company holds the distinction of having raised the largest single round of VC funding ever for a biotech startup: $450 million last January.

While Moderna doesn’t yet have a single drug in human trials, the company has garnered the eye of venture capitalists because its revolutionary proposition is to help people create medicine within their own cells -- leading to a massive variety of potential treatments that are faster to test and cheaper to buy.

Related: At SXSW: How Biotech Can Overcome Obstacles

5. DocuSign

DocuSign | Facebook

Year founded: 2003

VC money raised: $527.7 million

Valuation: $3 billion

About: The electronic signature technology firm, which counts more than 50 million users across 188 countries, is the oldest company on this list. Initially created for real estate agents, DocuSign has come to be used in myriad sectors, including insurance, consumer goods, enterprise sales, financial, pharmaceuticals and more.

While reports of the company going public have been swirling for years, DocuSign said in May that it had indefinitely postponed an IPO when it raised $233 million from late-stage investors.

6. Domo

Domo via google plus

Year founded: 2010

VC money raised: $458.7 million

Valuation: $2 billion

About: Domo, a computer software firm based in American Fork, Utah, vends a business management platform that organizes company data into clear visualizations that are easy to share in real-time.

After announcing a $200 million funding round last April, Domo’s CEO Josh James said that the team was putting processes into place to take the company public by year’s end. Last August, for instance, the company hired CFO Bruce Felt, who has already overseen several IPOs in his career.

Related: How Big Data Helps Us Keep Pace (Infographic)

7. Prosper Marketplace

Simon Cunningham via Flickr | Enhanced by Entrepreneur

Year founded: 2005

VC money raised: $360.9 million

Valuation: $1.9 billion

About: Prosper is a peer-to-peer lending community of roughly 2 million members, where users can invest in and request personal loans priced between $2,000 and $35,000.

A handful of the traditional banks that may have once be considered Prosper competitors participated in a $165 million funding round last April, including the investment arm of Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, and SunTrust. The company’s biggest peer-to-peer competitor, Lending Club, went public last year in an offering that exceeded expectations.

8. AppNexus

AppNexus | Facebook

Year founded: 2007

VC money raised: $313.2 million

Valuation: $1.6 billion

About: New York-based AppNexus, which provides a real-time online advertising platform, acquired rival Yieldex in a $100 million deal last March that The Wall Street Journal said had “potential IPO ramifications.” Prior to that acquisition, AppNexus purchased cross-device advertising startup MediaGlu, ad-serving platform Open AdStream and French viewability shop Alenty for a collective total of over $200 million in 2014.

Related: 6 Reasons Smart Entrepreneurs Think Twice Before Seeking an IPO

9. Automattic

Automattic via Facebook | Mighty Pretty Photos

Year founded: 2005

VC money raised: $205.7 million

Valuation: $1.2 billion

About: Best known as the parent company of blogging host WordPress, Automattic raised $160 million last month in its first investment since 2008, led by Insight Venture Partners. Though raising large, late-stage rounds often points to an impending IPO, CEO Matt Mullenweg told The Wall Street Journal at the time, “We now have the liquidity to build the company to the next level without needing to turn to the public for money.”

10. Oportun

Oportun

Year founded: 2005

VC money raised: $283.6 million

Valuation: $873.2 million

About: Oportun, formerly known as Progreso Finaciero, provides loans to the Hispanic community to help those without a credit history establish credit. Reports began to circulate in April that the company, which operates online and counts 140 locations across California, Texas and Illinois, was working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on an IPO that could value the company at $1 billion.

Related: Priceless Words From the Founder of WordPress