Good day. Spotify did it last year. Slack did it this year. Airbnb is considering it. And now investors and entrepreneurs are debating the merits of it. Everyone is talking about them: direct listings, a potential avenue to a public listing that sidesteps some of the investment-bank guesswork of a traditional IPO.

But in their rush to embrace direct listings, some industry participants are overlooking the fact that there are other alternatives at their disposal. Google took one such route when it went public in 2004 by conducting a Dutch auction, where the stock price is determined by demand from bidders. Also, reverse mergers are occasionally undertaken by biotechnology companies, though few tech startups have tried that route. And special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, have seen a few takers, like Social Capital, which created Hedosophia Holdings for this purpose.

Some also suggest there is room to modify the direct-listing approach. For example, raising capital before the listing would address one downside of direct listings in that they don’t generate proceeds for the company. Alternately, building in a lock-up period for existing shareholders would prevent an exodus of existing shareholders during the crucial early trading period.

And now on to the news...

IPO record. Venture-backed companies going public so far this year have raised more money than in any full year on record, including during the dot-com boom, WSJ Pro’s Katie Roof reports.

• These companies raised $23.3 billion in initial public offerings on U.S. exchanges in the first three quarters of the year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
   
• The previous record was in 2000, when companies raised $20.4 billion in the full year. Adjusted for inflation, the 2000 figure is equivalent to $30.3 billion in today’s dollars.
   
• The record haul comes as some venture capitalists, including Benchmark’s Bill Gurley, have been advocating for alternative methods of going public, such as through direct listings.
   
• The overall number of venture-backed IPOs so far this year, 61, is much lower than what was seen in the dot-com boom: 210 in 2000.

Related:

• Fear Overtakes Greed in IPO Market After WeWork Debacle
• WeWork Investors Turned Off by ‘Sloppy’ IPO Filings

Insure-tech. Reinsurance company Munich Re AG has invested $250 million in Next Insurance Inc. in a funding round that valued the small-business insurance provider at more than $1 billion, WSJ Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports. Munich Re was the sole investor in the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company’s Series C round. Next Insurance offers general liability, professional liability, workers’ compensation and other types of insurance policies for small businesses. The customers it serves “can be anything, from a clown to a general contractor.”

Due diligence. San Francisco biotechnology investor Fifty Years is launching a new program to recruit more people with doctorate degrees or similar advanced scientific training into startups and venture capital, WSJ Pro’s Heather Mack reports. The goal is both to help scientists translate their work into viable businesses and to ease tech investors into complex fields such as biopharmaceuticals and synthetic biology. “After Theranos, everyone is rightly worried that their fund name is going to appear on a cap table of a scientifically discredited company,” Founding Partner Seth Bannon said.

Inside round. Lodging firm Oyo Hotels & Homes said it plans to raise $1.5 billion from its founder and existing investors, partly to fund its expansion in the U.S. and Europe. The Indian company counts SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Airbnb Inc. and Lightspeed Venture Partners among its key investors.

Spinoff. Walmart Inc. is talking to investors and companies about taking over its Jetblack personal shopping service in a potential spinoff that would have the unprofitable venture’s CEO Jenny Fleiss exit, the Journal’s Sarah Nassauer reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The retailer has engaged several potential partners including Microsoft Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc., as well as venture-capital firms, including New Enterprise Associates, some of these people said.

CVC, a private-equity and credit investor with at least $82 billion in assets, confirmed that it agreed to acquire a minority stake in mobile marketing company IronSource for more than $400 million. Tel Aviv-based IronSource was founded in 2009 and offers technology that helps customers, particularly app developers, monetize and distribute their mobile apps, among other services. The company is expected to finish 2019 with $1 billion in revenue, according to a news release. It has been backed by Israeli venture-capital firm Viola Ventures, according to that firm’s website.

Radian Capital has raised $300 million for its second flagship growth-equity fund, Radian Capital Partners II LP, a regulatory filing shows. Started by Jordan Bettman and Weston Gaddy, who came out of Bain Capital Ventures, the New York firm targets enterprise software companies and technology-enabled service providers. The firm raised its first fund with $150 million in commitments, double the amount it initially sought in 2016. Radian makes investments of between $5 million and $30 million. 

Valor Ventures, an Atlanta-based venture-capital firm, raised more than a third of its $25 million target for its second fund. The new fund will invest in 25 to 30 seed-stage startups over four years, the firm said. It has made two investments to date: Capway, a digital banking and financial literacy platform, and Physican360, an on-demand prescription platform.

Google weighs acquisition of rival to video app TikTok. Firework is the startup behind an app that lets users share 30-second clips; Weibo also has expressed interest.

PayPal drops out of Facebook’s Libra payments network. Payments company’s move comes as other financial partners reconsider their involvement.

SAP to sell startup’s AI software for privacy compliance. The partnership with BigID is aimed at helping corporate customers navigate regulations including CCPA and GDPR.

Disney bans Netflix ads as streaming’s marketing wars intensify. Entertainment giants are set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to promote new streaming services.

HP to cut up to 9,000 jobs in new CEO’s restructuring plan. Printer-and-ink sales model gets makeover to revive lackluster earnings.

“Wonder Years” star accused of trying to undermine Peter Thiel’s venture fund. (NY Post)

Startups with gender-diverse teams tend to raise more capital. (Kauffman)

WeWork is in talks with banks including JPMorgan to arrange financing. (NY Post)

Attorneys defending Elizabeth Holmes say they haven’t gotten paid. (Business Insider)

Former Tinder CEO files defamation lawsuit. (TechCrunch)

How Baltimore is working to close the funding gap for founders of color. (Technical.ly)

Gradient AI, a Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of artificial-intelligence software for the insurance technology sector, raised $6 million in a Series A financing led by Forte Ventures and Sandbox Insurtech Ventures. Existing investor MassMutual Ventures also participated.

Oneiro, a Boston-based blockchain company, secured $5 million from Cosimo Ventures, bringing the company’s total amount raised to $8 million. Oneiro also announced the appointment of Dhesi Ananchaperumal, the co-founder of Verité, as its CEO.

Saturn Cloud, a New York-based collaboration platform for data scientists based on the Python programming language, raised $4 million in its first funding round weeks after its incorporation. SignalFire led the round.

Knowable, a Los Angeles startup launching an audio learning platform, closed a $4 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Upfront Ventures, Initialized Capital and First Round Capital participated.

Mon Ami, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company tackling social isolation in aging, closed on $3.4 million in seed financing. Freestyle Ventures and Cowboy Ventures led the round, with participation from Maverick Ventures, Felicis Ventures and individual investor Bruce Dunlevie.

Unagi, an Oakland, Calif.-based electric scooter startup, raised nearly $3.2 million in a seed funding round led by Menlo Ventures.

We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Tomio Geron, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley, Heather Mack, Katie Roof and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @tomiogeron, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @1heathermack, @katie_roof, @marcvarta.