Desperate Unicorn Startups Can’t IPO and Are Starved for Cash

As hard as it is to remember, there were buzzy startups in Silicon Valley before the tech world became solely fixated on artificial intelligence. By the time the Covid-era tech boom crested in 2021, well over 1,000 venture capital-backed startups had reached valuations above $1 billion, including fake meat purveyor Impossible Foods Inc., home maintenance marketplace Thumbtack and online-class platform MasterClass. Then came a squeeze sparked by rising interest rates, a slowing initial public offering market and the feeling that any startup not focused on AI was yesterday’s news.

Packages of Impossible Burger plant-based meat are displayed for sale during the Impossible Foods grocery store product introduction in Los Angeles in 2019.

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

A reckoning that has been looming for years ...