A Long, Strange Trip for the ‘Uber for Nurses’Read more

From left: Snowflake's Frank Slootman, Palantir's Alexander Karp and Asana's Dustin Moskovitz. Photos by Snowflake, Bloomberg and Julie Mikos.

Five New Software Stocks: Why Investors Love Some and Hate Others

By  |  Sept. 15, 2020 6:02 AM PDT
Photo: From left: Snowflake's Frank Slootman, Palantir's Alexander Karp and Asana's Dustin Moskovitz. Photos by Snowflake, Bloomberg and Julie Mikos.

Five enterprise software companies are going public this month, cashing in on the sector’s enormous popularity with investors. But while investors love some of the companies, such as Snowflake, giving it a valuation of nearly 100 times’ last year’s revenue, they hate others. Sumo Logic, for instance, may get a valuation of just 10 times last year’s revenue.

So which stocks are worth the hype and which ones are underpriced? The wide variations reflect big differences in the companies’ business models. But one could make the case that a couple—JFrog, for instance—may be a little too cheap, certainly compared to how highly valued Snowflake looks like it will be at its initial public offering. And Palantir may be a little too expensive, some investors argue.

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