The Number

During 2018, five companies in the greater Los Angeles region staged initial public offerings of their stock, with only one in the Valley region, according to a report from accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP. ToughBuilt Industries in Glendale raised $13.35 million when it went public in November. It trades under the ticker TBLT on the Nasdaq. The company, which makes equipment for construction workers, was founded in 2012. Scott Porter, partner with the advisory services practice at EY in Los Angeles, declined to talk about specific companies that went public but said the L.A. companies came from the fianncial services, software and consumer products sectors. “It’s consistent with what we’ve seen in prior years,” Porter said. “Tech is one industry where we’ve seen companies scale quite rapidly and now they’re going through their liquidity event.” The four L.A.-based IPOs raised a total of $325 million. Porter said it surprised him that several of these were staged by banks or other lenders, and that most of the companies have been in existence for 15 years or more. That puts the market in contrast to the stereotype of “unicorns,” or startups that have a pre-IPO value of $1 billion or more. “Companies are waiting longer to go public until they’ve grown their revenue,” he explained. “There is a lot of capital out there and companies don’t need to access public markets.” Nationally, the number of IPOs in the United States increased last year 14 percent to 205 and the money raised grew 31 percent to $52.8 billion, according to EY. “When you look at a macro level, proceeds were up significantly over prior years,” Porter said. He noted that one of the companies included in Los Angeles is actually in Santa Barbara. EY also reported one IPO in Bakersfield and another in San Luis Obispo.