Is Snap spearheading a unicorn IPO craze?

The global music streaming market leader, which boasts more than 40 million paying subscribers, has long been rumored to go public. A recent report on TechCrunch now suggests the Sweden-based company is finally preparing to hit Wall Street - but not before 2018.

"I feel like we maybe just entered high school," CEO Travis Kalanick recently told Vanity Fair magazine. "It's not time to go to prom yet," he said, shutting down speculation about an initial public offering. And indeed, Uber is still not profitable and faces a sexual harassment scandal. But it is also valued at a staggering $68 billion (64.5 billion euros). Maybe it is prom time soon.

The home-sharing company operating in 191 countries is getting "IPO-ready," CEO Brian Chesky recently told WIRED. But he added they were not in a hurry to go public and would hold back until they were fully prepared. Meanwhile, they've worked on adding new services, such as flight-bookings, to their offer.

Co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi turned digital publishing upside down. The brand's edgy and bold approach captures a young audience and sees them continue to grow internationally. After collecting investments from the likes of 21st Century Fox and Disney, it seems more and more likely that 2017 is their year to go public.

It has long been speculated that Dropbox may go public - but their rival Box's disappointing IPO raised concerns about the success of file-sharing platforms on the stock market. Yes, Dropbox has 500 million registered users worldwide. But many of them only use its free service. That is why Dropbox is now looking to add to their 200,000 paying corporate users ahead of a potential IPO.

Not much is known about the inner workings of Palantir, the big data company whose data-crunching software supposedly helped capture Osama bin Laden. But CEO Alexander Karp last year called going public a possibility.