Dec. 30--2014 was a big year in tech finance, headlined with multibillion-dollar acquisitions, valuations and mega IPOs, including Alibaba, the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history.
The highlights:
In January ...
Dropbox received a new private investment round that valued the cloud storage company at $10 billion.
In March ...
Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus VR for almost $2 billion. Oculus was cofounded by home-schooled Palmer Luckey in his parents' Long Beach garage. Original funding came from Kickstarter.
An AirBnB investment round pegged total company value at more than $10 billion, which seems to be a popular sum.
Food ordering service GrubHub, cloud computing company Arista and health technology firm Castlight Health went public.
In June ...
Action camera manufacturer GoPro went public.
In August ...
Amazon bought video streaming platform Twitch for $970 million.
Snapchat, the Venice-based disappearing message app-maker, reached a $10-billion valuation based on a new investment round.
In September ...
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba scored the biggest U.S. IPO ever. The market valued the company at $220 billion, with $22 billion of that amount landing on the company's balance sheet.
PayPal was spun off from Ebay.
In October ...
Facebook closed a $21.8-billion deal for WhatsApp.
In December ...
Google bought 12 acres in Playa Vista, vastly expanding its Los Angeles presence.
In a jaw-dropping investment round, ride-hailing company Uber was valued at $40 billion.
Lending Club went public in the biggest IPO by a California company in 2014 with a valuation of $8.5 billion.
Investors value Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi at $46 billion.
