The IPO Window Won’t Stay Open On Its Own

We like to talk about the IPO window as something that’s either open or closed.

But as the occupant of an old house with windows once held up with pulleys, I’ve also encountered a third type: A window that opens easily and then proceeds to slam shut on your fingers if you don’t prop it up or get out of the way.

This, unfortunately, could be the window type that most closely resembles the current IPO climate. It looked pretty open as the year commenced. But it also looks like it could be slamming down.

Take some of last year’s IPO darlings. Remember Figma? The design software company soared to a $68 billion valuation after more than tripling in its July debut. Today it’s valued around $14 billion — well below what Adobe planned to pay in its ill-fated acquisition attempt three years ago.

The biggest fintech and crypto offerings have also fallen. Stablecoin issuer Circle is down more than two-thirds from its peak in June. Buy now, pay later provider Klarna is near the lowest point since its September IPO. And online banking platform Chime is also well below its first-day price.

Two other high-profile offerings late last year — StubHub and Navan — are also down from where they started.

Now, these aren’t horrible underperformances, by IPO standards. It’s not like the 2022 SPAC meltdown, when companies went from multibillion-dollar valuations to practically worthless in a few quarters. And some of last year’s splashiest market newcomers have done well, like Coreweave, which is still well above its IPO price.

But still, we were hoping to see the stage set for a boom in new offerings in 2026. Seeing last year’s most talked about new market entrants largely continue to underwhelm isn’t a great backdrop to prepare for some of the biggest offerings of all time.

That’s closer to understatement than exaggeration. SpaceX, which is reportedly looking to launch an IPO by this summer, was reportedly previously eyeing a valuation of $1.5 trillion, which would make it by far the most valuable new listing of all time.

OpenAI and Anthropic are also considering the IPO path. OpenAI has reportedly contemplated filing this year, with a target valuation of up to $1 trillion. Anthropic, recently valued around $350 billion, is looking to potentially beat its rival to the public markets.

Moreover, there’s a long list of other contenders in sectors from cybersecurity to health to defense tech. Fintech looks particularly poised for exits, with Plaid, Ramp, Monzo and Revolut among the favored pre-IPO names.

One likely outcome in coming quarters is that startup backers and IPO underwriters will manage to keep the new offering window propped open long enough to get some bid deals to market.

If you are a one-of-a-kind company like SpaceX, investor enthusiasm to own a piece of a category-defining player will likely be high enough to support valuations that might look crazy ambitious for anyone else. The same could apply to OpenAI.

The more typical IPO candidate — say an enterprise software unicorn with a viable AI strategy and decently growing revenue — won’t have the same excitement generation capacity. So ordinary deals won’t likely be able to prop open a window.

Hopefully they won’t be left in the worst position if it suddenly slams shut.