That said, this was from the article: "Many of the tech companies that listed shares in the U.S. were based in China, including some of the largest IPOs of the year, such as online-entertainment services company iQIYI Inc. and Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo Inc."
The Chinese economy is reacting in all sorts of ways to its new larger size, pressure from the US in trade wars, and pressure at home to spread some of the prosperity around. If you take all of the Chinese companies out of the list, the IPO statistic is unremarkable.
What I find most interesting is the Unicorn do or die issue. Which is that many may find it impossible to go to the private equity trough again, that bubble does seem to have deflated. Valuations aside, when you have raised over a billion dollars that is real money that somebody is going to miss it if you just roll up the carpets and go home.
It felt to me that the collapse of Theranos woke up a lot of 'stupid' money (that is money from people who are investing in a fad but without research). And those folks have said, "Hmm, ok now I'd like to sell my equity in this company you guys say is worth $X, that means you will pay me $Z for my stake right?" Only to find it doesn't work that way, there are no buyers, no liquidity as they say, for those preferred shares. But they can vote and they can tell the CEO, you're not getting another penny from us, we'd like to sell our shares. And that leaves the public markets as the investor of last resort.
So it does feel like a Unicorn reckoning is to be had. Where companies will have to prove that a cruel and unemotional market will agree with their lofty valuations. They won't all make it over that hump. As the Vikings might say, "There will be songs sung about these days."