????多家獲得風投支持的私營企業迅速獲得了極高的估值增長。在硅谷和私營科技企業中，這種現象顯然已經存在了一段時間。然而，最近其估值的提升幅度和頻率仍令我感到震驚。我一直在努力搜集形成這種環境的各種因素——我的最終得出的結論是：稀缺性、市場動力、擔心坐失良機的心理和收益。

????1. 稀缺性

????盡管年初以來股市表現一般，但私募市場的估值水平繼續迅速躥升。為什么會出現這樣的反差呢？一個主要原因就是稀缺性。私營企業并不是每天都會融資。如果想投資某家私營公司，風投資本一年也許只有一次機會。這些公司以往的大規模融資表明，激烈的競爭自然而然地會將這些少有的機會留給最有吸引力的企業。因此，在競爭中勝出的風投普遍都遵循這樣的邏輯：“雖然從基本面（或者由于缺乏基本面）來看，這筆投資現在看起來似乎是個不小的數目，但隨著這家公司的成長，其價值將大幅提升，因此這筆投資在將來可能會變得十分物有所值。”

????與之相反，股市投資者不會遇到此類稀缺性問題。在他們的投資領域，公司股票每天都可以按一定的價格進行買賣。對這些投資者來說，不存在什么稀缺性，他們需要的只是明智而及時地做出選擇。因此，上市股票的估值往往以現有業績和對短期財務表現的預期為基礎，所以更加合理。當然，也有很貴的上市公司，但它們的高估值來自于相當廣泛的需求，就連剛剛首發上市，流動性有限的新股也是如此，這和贏得私營企業投資權的風投給出的高價完全不同。

????2. 市場動力

????此類估值上升的幅度和頻率一直未見減弱（而且還有可能不斷增強）的另一個原因在于，當稀缺投資機會出現時，采用高報價策略一般都得到了回報。隨著更多資金涉足這個由風投支持的高增長“資產類別”（它真的已經超出了某一類資產的范疇），競相抬價的動力有增無減。因此，只要具有吸引力的公司開始融資，就一定會出現競爭，而在競爭中脫穎而出的風投就會把這些公司的估值提升到另一個新的水平。在更高的估值鼓舞之下，現有參與者已經變得十分激進，新的資金也不斷參與進來，市場動力愈發強勁。

????Several private, venture-backed companies have achieved rapid and extreme valuation mark-ups. This has obviously been going on for some time now in Silicon Valley and the private tech sector, but the magnitude and frequency of the recent write-ups has given me pause. I’ve been trying to piece together the ingredients that are creating this environment, and it comes down to the following: Scarcity, momentum, FOMO and gains:

????1. Scarcity

????Despite the fact that public market stock performance has been muted so far this year, private market valuations continue to surge upwards. Why this dichotomy? One big factor is scarcity. Private companies don’t raise money every day. If a VC wants to invest in a company, she may only get the option once a year. Given all the big funds that have been raised, fierce competition naturally ensues for these scarce slots in the most attractive companies. As a result, the prevailing logic of the winning bidder tends to be along the lines of “this might look expensive today based on fundamentals (or lack of fundamentals), but this will look like a great price down the road when this company is worth much more as it grows.”

????Contrast this with public market investors who don’t face the same scarcity problem. There is a price every day for the shares of the companies in their universe. For public market investors, there is no scarcity, only a need to pick wisely and in a timely manner. As a result, valuations tend to make more sense based on current and near term future expected financial performance. Sure, there are expensive public stocks but, even for newly IPO’d companies with limited public floats, high multiples are driven by fairly broad-based demand versus a high price based on the winner of a scarcity auction.

????2. Momentum

????Another reason the magnitude and frequency of write ups hasn’t abated (and may be increasing) is that the strategy of overpaying in the scarcity auctions for the most attractive companies has generally paid off. As more capital has entered the high growth, venture-backed “asset class” (it’s really more of an asset niche), the dynamics have only intensified. So, each time an attractive company has opened its gates to new capital, the ensuing competition has driven valuations even higher for the winning bidder. Emboldened by these write-ups, existing players have stayed aggressive and more new capital has entered the system. The momentum has continued to build.