“Dead” for Years, IPOs Are Back

Fall is here.

And that means it’s time for initial public offerings (IPOs).

In most years, the stretch from September to early November is the most prolific window to go public, as Wall Street returns from vacations – ready to rev up and make the most out of the window between now and the holidays.

The last few years (2022–present) have been painful for IPOs.

After the incredible year in 2021 – where 397 companies went public, raising $142 billion in capital – it felt like the spigot was shut, and the IPO market got skunked.

• 2021: 397 IPOs raised $142 billion
• 2022: 71 IPOs raised just $7.7 billion
• 2023: 108 IPOs raised just $19.4 billion
• 2024: 150 IPOs raised just $29.6 billion
• 2025 year to date: 142 IPOs have raised $22.7 billion

The spring season had been looking promising early this year, but the financial media-induced panic over tariffs and trade sadly sidelined promising IPOs, as the markets were driven to this year’s lows in April.

This was unfortunate and unnecessary, as we now know. Tariffs haven’t resulted in runaway inflation – not even close – and the trade deals got done. Back to business with the stock markets at all-time highs.

And with the futures markets pricing in an 87% likelihood of a Fed Funds rate cut this month, the expectation is that this will be the first of several cuts to lower interest rates.

And that’s going to be good news for the markets, specifically small caps, biotech, and IPOs.

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Got That IPO Fever

For those of us who follow the IPO markets closely, you can feel the tension and excitement.

There are more than 1,000 private companies that have been waiting patiently behind the gates for the right moment to access the public markets, raise fresh capital, and provide some liquidity for both investors and employees.

August turned out to be a strong signal for what’s to come, with 29 companies filing for an IPO – the highest monthly number in the last two years. Given that August is the quietest month for IPOs, most weren’t paying attention to the activity…

But it was clear that a larger number of companies are gearing up in anticipation of strong market conditions.

This morning turned out to be a lot more exciting than expected, as five companies kicked off their IPO roadshows:

• Figure Technology (FIGR) (not to be confused with the humanoid robotics maker)
• Klarna (KLAR)
• Gemini (GEMI) (not to be confused with Google’s foundational generative AI model)
• Black Rock Coffee (BRCB)
• Legence (LGN)

Once a company gets to the stage of a roadshow, an IPO is all but certain.

It’s the final industry step whereby the company pitches the IPO to institutional investors, collects feedback, and works with its underwriters (investment banks) to set the price of the IPO. It’s definitely a racket (for the banks), but that’s the way it has been done for decades.

All five companies listed above are expected to price and list publicly next week.

That’s a great start to the IPO season this fall.

And many more new names will follow.

Some of the names that I’m expecting in 2025 are:

• Netskope (cybersecurity)
• Via Transportation (urban ridesharing)
• Cerebras (semiconductors)
• Stubhub (ticket marketplace)
• Wealthfront (fintech)
• BitGo (digital asset custody & lending)
• Grayscale (digital asset investment products)
• Databricks (enterprise AI management software)
• Canva (software for producing graphics)
• Kraken (digital asset exchange)

While the next three months will be a strong finish to the year for IPOs, 2025 will still be a weak year overall for IPOs.

I believe that we’ll finish the full year around 2017 levels, which is an indication of how much more room we have to grow in future IPO issuances.

Source: Renaissance Capital

2025’s IPO count and total amount raised will definitely be well above 2024, and a steppingstone to a much larger IPO year in 2026.

2026 is when I believe we’ll see a booming IPO market that looks a lot more like 2020.

Trophy Years Ahead

No matter how I look at it, 2026–2028 have all the elements to be bumper years for IPOs.

The confluence of technological development, backlog of mature private companies, economic policy, fiscal policy, regulatory environment, and monetary policy (lowering rates) has the makings to bring us the most ebullient IPO boom of our lifetimes.

After years, and in some cases more than a decade, of tracking emerging high-growth private companies, I can say this…

I am ridiculously excited to be publishing research on these names – as publicly traded companies – and to be able to share their tremendous potential with my subscribers.

Prepare for the boom…

Jeff