Doors to IPO market swinging open After a year-long drought in the global IPO market, Q2’17 saw the IPO doors opening further following a tentative start in Q1’17. Already in 2017, five major unicorns have held IPOs, including Cloudera, China Rapid Finance and Okta during Q2. Others are expected to follow suit heading into Q3’17. While the number of IPOs are not expected to approach historical highs, the rebound, combined with strong M&A activity, is likely to lead to some renewal across the VC market as a whole and the release of some of the built up unrealized gains. Trends to watch for globally Globally, blockchain is expected to continue to attract investor interest and attention. While there will continue to be a focus on leveraging the technology in applications related to financial services, looking ahead, there will also likely be a shift toward investing in technologies that leverage blockchain for other industries (e.g. agriculture, retail) or operational verticals (e.g. analytics, performance management). AI, virtual reality and healthtech — including biotech — are also expected to be hot areas of investment throughout the remainder of 2017. © 2017 KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”). KPMG International provides no client services and is a Swiss entity with which the independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated. #Q2VC