Neo4j Upcoming IPO: Charting a course toward going public

Big Data and analytics may seem like yesterday's news, with AI now taking center stage, but to even make AI possible, you need to create connections between vast quantities of data. That's where technology like graph database management systems can come into play, and one of the most prominent companies in this space is Neo4j.

After reaching a valuation of over $2 billion with its 2021 Series F,⁴ Neo4j has been fairly quiet from an external investment perspective. However, in early 2024, Bloomberg reported that Neo4j is planning an IPO on Nasdaq once the conditions for IPOs improve as a whole, according to its largest investor, Greenbridge Investment.⁵

Since then, however, Neo4j has not announced any specific IPO plans.

Neo4j: Company background

Neo4j is a graph database company that helps other businesses build and identify connections from within their own datasets.

The company's roots date back to 2000, when its founders — Emil Eifrem, Johan Svensson and Peter Neubauer — identified issues with relational database management system software⁶ and started to create a prototype of Neo4j's graph database technology.⁷ In 2007, the company was officially formed in Sweden, and in 2011 it relocated to Silicon Valley and raised its Series A.⁸

Today, Eifrem remains as Neo4j's CEO.⁹

Helping the world's largest companies create data connections

Graph technology isn't something that the average person directly uses, but it's what enables companies to create complex connections between large quantities of data for purposes such as identity verification, fraud detection, and generative AI applications.¹⁰

"Graphs form the foundation of many modern data and analytics capabilities to find relationships between people, places, things, events and locations across diverse data assets," explained Gartner, while predicting that graph technology will be behind 80% of data and analytics innovations by 2025, compared to just 10% at the time of making this prediction in 2021.¹¹

Overall, the graph technology market is projected to reach $15.8 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 22% from 2023-2030, according to Grand View Research.¹²

Based on its 2022 annual recurring revenue (ARR) performance, Neo4j appears well-positioned to capture a significant share of the market, having crossed $100 million in ARR in 2021 and achieved double-digit growth the following year.¹³

The company's clients account for 75% of the Fortune 100, working with companies across industries such as Airbus, eBay, and JPMorgan Chase.¹⁴ Neo4j's work with eBay, for example, involves powering the data connections behind the eBay app on Google Assistant so that the AI chatbot can make better recommendations to customers.¹⁵

Neo4j stock price history

Neo4j's Forge Price is $9.74 as of the beginning of October 2024, which is a little more than a 25% decrease since its last primary funding round in 2021¹⁶. Forge Price is a derived data point that reflects the up-to-date price performance of venture-backed, late-stage companies, and is calculated based on a proprietary model incorporating pricing inputs from primary funding round information, secondary market transactions, and indications of interest (IOIs) on Forge.

Neo4j's Forge Price reached as high as $19 per share in early 2022, and it hit a low of $7.99 in late 2023¹⁷. So, while Neo4j's is still trading at a discount to its last primary funding round, it's up about 22% over the last year. In comparison, the Forge Private Market Index — a broad measurement that reflects the up-to-date performance and pricing activity of venture-backed, late-stage companies that are actively traded in the private market — is down -1.7%.¹⁸

Neo4j funding history and private market valuation

Neo4j raised its series A in 2011 at a valuation of $37.2 million, and the company has quickly grown since then. Its valuation jumped to $60 million the next year after its Series B, and it has ultimately raised $755.1 million in funding across 10 rounds.¹⁹ Most recently, it raised $325 million in 2021 at a valuation of over $2 billion.²⁰

Neo4j's largest investor is Greenbridge Investment,²¹ and some of its other key investors include Eurazeo, Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, GV (formerly Google Ventures), and Sunstone Capital, among others.²²

Neo4j's last-known valuation is $2.34 billion, but its recent Forge Price trading at around a 25% discount indicates that valuation has fallen.²³ Still, Forge Prices can be volatile due to the limited liquidity of private market stocks like Neo4j, and thus investors should be careful not to draw too many conclusions based on recent private market trading activity.

Looking ahead

If Neo4j's reported plans to go public once the market conditions improve are accurate, then an IPO filing could be around the corner, as the IPO market does seem to be thawing.²⁴ In particular, other prominent venture-backed tech companies like Cerebras have recently filed to go public,²⁵ which could be an indicator of what's to come for Neo4j. Still, it remains to be seen if and when Neo4j will follow through with an IPO.

Check back here or take a look at Forge’s upcoming IPO calendar to stay in the loop about a possible Neo4j IPO and other pending public offerings.

If you’re interested in investing in private companies like Neo4j before they go public, read more about pre-IPO investing or register on Forge Markets today to get started.