本月早些时候，在位于硅谷中心地带的瑰丽酒店，约100名机构投资者参加了风险投资公司安德森•霍洛维茨的有限合伙人年会。该公司在会上坚定地表示，尽管私募市场估值达到甚至超过10亿美元的所谓“独角兽”创业公司越来越多，但科技市场目前并不存在泡沫。

    它投资的“独角兽”公司包括Airbnb、Actifio、Instacart、Jawbone、Lyft、Pinterest、Slack和Zenefits。之前还曾投资过Twitter以及云存储公司Box。

    在这次年会上，公司首席运营官斯科特·库柏首先登台发言，其演示文稿在该公司网站上已经可以看到。他主要对比了当前和网络泡沫时期的环境，从中可以看到：当下的科技投资体量要比上一轮互联网泡沫时期小得多，而互联网用户数却比那时大太多了。该公司还指出，大批“独角兽”的兴起以及其中进行IPO的公司相对较少，意味着大部分增值落到了私募市场投资者手里（比如参会的各位）。

    举例来说，据安德森•霍洛维茨公司的报告显示，2014年美国科技界通过风投和IPO得到的融资总规模为480亿美元，约占美国GDP的2.6%；而1999年这个数字为710亿美元，占GDP比例为10.8%，显然要高得多。此外，标普IT指数的远期市盈率目前为16.1倍，1999年则为39倍。而所有这些数字的时代背景是：目前全球互联网用户数量已是1999年的7.5倍，电子商务行业的年收入也增长了25倍以上。

    Earlier this month, around 100 institutional investors gathered at the Rosewood Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, for the annual limited partner meeting of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. What they heard was the firm’s staunch belief that the tech market is not currently in a bubble, despite the proliferation of so-called unicorn startups that have received billion-dollar (or higher) valuations in the private markets.

    Among the unicorns in Andreessen Horowotiz’s portfolio are Airbnb, Actifio, Instacart, Jawbone, Lyft, Jawbone, Pinterest, Slack and Zenefits. Prior investments included Box and Twitter .

    The VC firm’s argument was first presented to investors by chief operating officer Scott Kupor, via a slideshow that is now available on the firm’s website. It primarily compares the current environment to that of the dotcom bubble, showing that today’s tech investment volumes are much smaller despite the much larger number of Internet users. The firm also argues that the unicorn development — and relative lack of IPOs — means that most of the value appreciation is going to private market investors (i.e., those in the room).

    For example, Andreessen Horowitz reports that the total amount of venture capital and IPO financing dollars in 2014 was $48 billion, compared to $71 billion in 1999. That works out to around 2.6% of today’s GDP, while the 1999 figure comprised a much higher 10.8% of GDP. Moreover, the S&P IT index’s forward price-earnings ratio is 16.1x today versus 39x in 1999. All of this comes at a time when the global Internet population is 7.5x larger and annual e-commerce revenue is up more than 25x.