Editor’s note: This article is part of our 2026 forecast coverage. See our IPO market outlook here, our startup M&A forecast here, and our venture investment outlook here.
After a prolonged slowdown, the IPO market is showing clearer signs of life. As our 2026 IPO outlook forecast details, improving public-market conditions, stabilizing interest rates and renewed investor appetite for growth are setting the stage for a wider reopening of the listing window.
Against that backdrop, a growing cohort of late-stage private companies now looks increasingly prepared to make the leap. Using Crunchbase’s predictive intelligence tools — which evaluate factors including funding history, growth signals, investor mix and market timing — we’ve curated a list of 15 companies across AI, enterprise software, fintech, space, defense, healthcare and consumer tech that could realistically go public in 2026, should market momentum continue to build.
AI and enterprise tech
Crusoe Energy Systems: When the window is open, you make your move. That’s something IPO market timers take to heart. But while well-funded private companies are aware of this cyclicality, actually prepping and orchestrating a public debut takes the kind of prep that doesn’t always align with the perfect window. That said, AI infrastructure unicorn Crusoe Energy Systems is certainly scaling in a direction that points to a public exit, a likelihood that Crunchbase predictions affirm with a “probable” rating on a listing for the Denver-based company. Crusoe closed on a $1.4 billion Series E in October at a valuation of more than $10 billion. With generative AI platforms currently expanding and investing at an unprecedented rate, the timing is certainly right for the kind of growth metrics IPO investors appreciate.
— Joanna Glasner
Databricks: Databricks has been on our list since the end of 2021, when it missed the IPO window. Crunchbase’s predictive tools label it a “very likely” IPO candidate and that makes sense. The 12-year-old, San Francisco-based company is well placed to go public. As of Q3, it announced it is growing more than 55% year over year, with an over $4.8 billion revenue run rate as of its December funding announcement. Of that revenue, $1 billion was from its AI products. Net retention was above 140% and the company has been free cash flow positive for more than 12 months. Its valuation in recent months has soared. It was valued at $100 billion in September and in December at $134 billion in a round led by Insight Partners and public market investors Fidelity and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Cohere: Competition among model developers is heating up. AI lab Anthropic has reportedly engaged Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosatii to begin to explore an IPO, according to the Financial Times. While 2026 might be too early for Anthropic to go public, another, less-known model developer could make a public-market debut this year. Cohere, co-headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, focuses on supporting sovereign and secure AI for enterprise and governments. Its customers hail from across North America, APAC and EMEA, and include Oracle, Dell and Royal Bank of Canada. Aidan Gomez, its founder and CEO, spoke at a Bloomberg event in London expressing an interest in a public listing in the near future for the 6-year-old company, which was recently valued at $7 billion with $150 million in annual recurring revenue. Crunchbase predicts it is a “probable” IPO candidate.
Canva: Design platform Canva is another strong contender to go public in 2026. The 13-year-old Sydney, Australia-based company was valued at $42 billion in its most recent funding — a share sale for employees led by public market investor Fidelity. As of its August 2025 funding, Canva’s annualized revenue has reached $3.3 billion. The company, which Crunchbase bills a “probable” IPO candidate, claimed 240 million monthly users designing with its tools at that time. And adding further validation of Canva’s public-market readiness, competitor Figma went public in July 2024 at a valuation of $16.1 billion. (Although, Figma’s stock is slightly up as of mid-December but remains well below its first-day massive IPO pop of 255%.) As of Q3, Figma, by comparison, has reached $1 billion in annual revenue run rate.
— Gené Teare
Quantinuum: Before the AI boom, quantum computing was the hot, capital-intensive tech that got VCs and technologists excited. While AI has eclipsed investor interest in quantum, the latter continues to draw big checks from investors, who see enormous potential for the technology to facilitate breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug discovery to cybersecurity and defense. At least one quantum startup is actively mulling an IPO. That’s Quantinuum, which Crunchbase labels a “probable” IPO candidate. That prediction squares with other reporting, including a March 2025 Barron’s report that cited a source with direct knowledge of the matter saying parent company Honeywell is aiming for a 2026 or 2027 listing. The Broomfield, Colorado-based startup, formed in 2021 via the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum, has raised $925 million from venture investors to date, including a $600 million Nvidia-backed Series B in August at a $10 billion pre-money valuation.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Space and defense tech
K2 Space: Space tech has been a strong area for venture investment of late, and with the prospect of a SpaceX IPO in 2026, it’s an increasingly buzzy sector for public markets as well. Among recently funded startups in the sector, Torrance, California-based K2 Space is a standout on several fronts. For one, it’s a fundraising machine, securing more than $400 million across three rounds since 2024. That culminated in a $250 Series C led by Redpoint last month at a $3 billion valuation. The company, founded in 2022, develops large, high-power satellite platforms and has secured $500 million in signed contracts across commercial and U.S. government customers. Crunchbase predicts it’s “probable” that the startup will IPO.
— Joanna Glasner
SpaceX: This one is kind of a gimme. Late last year, Elon Musk-led SpaceX was reported to be eyeing an IPO that would be the largest VC-backed listing of all time — by about 10x — at a target valuation of $1.5 trillion. The company is already one of the most valuable private businesses in the world. Its reported IPO ambitions make a lot of sense, given the capital-intensive nature of space exploration, aforementioned investor appetite for space tech, and its revenue: an estimated $15 billion in 2025, much of it from its fast-growing StarLink satellite internet business. Founded in 2002, SpaceX has raised nearly $12 billion in its lifetime, according to Crunchbase, which pegs a “very likely” IPO probability on the Hawthorne, California-based company. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Craft Ventures, Valor Equity Partners and Founders Fund, among others.
Anduril Industries: Venture investment into defense tech hit an all-time high last year, and no company received more money than Anduril. Of the more than $7.7 billion that flowed to defense-related startups in 2025, roughly a third went to Anduril in its $2.5 billion Series G at a $30.5 billion valuation. The startup, founded in 2017 by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, is well-connected in the Trump administration and has been the beneficiary of the U.S. military’s efforts to modernize its defense and war technologies, including a contract with the DoD to supply VR/AR headsets to the U.S. Army. The company has raised $6.3 billion to date from investors including Founders Fund, the U.S. Department of Defense, Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. The Costa Mesa, California-based company is deemed a “very likely” IPO candidate.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Health and consumer tech
Innovaccer: Innovaccer, provider of AI-enabled data and intelligence platform for healthcare providers, hits a lot of the checklist items we see in pre-IPO startups. It’s been around for a while (founded in 2014), raised considerable capital, secured a big Series F early this year, and has high-profile strategic backers including Kaiser Permanente. With 1,200 employees across five global offices, San Francisco-based Innovaccer is also a fairly large operation at this point, and certainly looks scaled enough for a public market debut, all factors that contribute to its “probable” IPO prediction from Crunchbase.
— Joanna Glasner
Nothing: Hardware-maker Nothing is taking a more unconventional path to a potential IPO. The London-based startup is working to be “IPO-ready” in three years, CEO and co-founder Carl Pei told TechCrunch last month. In the meantime the company is giving fans of its smartphones and other gadgets a chance to invest at a $1.3 billion Series C valuation via platforms like Wefunder and Crowdcube. “The timing will depend on market conditions and what makes sense for the business at that point in time,” Pei told the publication. Crunchbase puts a “probable” prediction on an IPO for Nothing, which has reportedly posted fast growth, particularly in markets like India, the U.K. and Japan. The company has said it hit more than $1 billion in lifetime sales last year and has sold more than 7 million devices. Along with its crowdfunding campaigns, Nothing has raised more than $446 million from venture investors including Tiger Global Management and GV, per Crunchbase.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Cybersecurity
Huntress: Cybersecurity has long been one of the most robust and predictable areas for venture investment. One of the faster-growing startups in the sphere is Huntress, which offers cybersecurity products for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have the resources for a fully staffed 24/7 security team. Crunchbase pins a “probable” IPO prediction on the company, and CEO Kyle Hanslovan has also indicated a Huntress listing is a strong possibility in coming years. Interviewed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in late October, he said that the Columbia, Maryland-based company has posted 60% year-over-year growth and is on track to hit $185 million to $190 million in revenue this year. Demand for its offerings has only increased as generative AI has aided scammers and hackers to craft more sophisticated phishing and other cyber attacks, he said. The company has raised nearly $310 million from investors to date, per Crunchbase, including a June 2024 Series D led by Kleiner Perkins, Meritech Capital Partners and Sapphire Ventures.
Ledger: Crunchbase says it’s “probable” that crypto wallet startup Ledger will IPO. That’s down from a “very likely” prediction last year, but other signs continue to point to the likelihood of an offering for the Paris-based startup, which provides a hardware wallet to secure crypto private keys. That means Ledger, founded in 2014, is well-positioned at the intersection of two currently hot industries: cybersecurity and blockchain. It has raised some $577 million from venture investors including Molten Ventures and Samsung Ventures, per Crunchbase. CEO Pascal Gauthier told European tech publication Sifted in mid-2025 that Ledger is actively thinking about a U.S. stock market debut, likely within the next three years. He reiterated that an IPO is actively under consideration in an interview with Financial Times last year, adding that the company’s revenue had hit triple-digit millions in 2025 amid soaring demand for secure crypto storage devices spurred by rising hacks. Ledger secures about $100 billion worth of bitcoin for its customers, he said. Gauthier has previously said an estimated 20% of the world’s crypto assets are protected by his company’s wallets.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Fintech
Plaid: With a “very likely” IPO prediction from Crunchbase, 2026 could be the year that Plaid, a fintech company that connects bank accounts to financial applications, finally decides to go public. In April, the company sold about $575 million worth of common stock at a $6.1 billion post-money valuation. At the time, Plaid told TechCrunch that it would not go public in 2025, but confirmed that an IPO was a milestone the company continued “to track towards.” The startup has not revealed specifics around revenue, noting only that 2025 was a record-setting year in which revenue grew over 25%. Plaid has raised about $1.3 billion from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Franklin Templeton, BoxGroup, Index Ventures and BlackRock.
Revolut: Revolut, a digital bank based in London, is a “very likely” candidate for an initial public offering, per Crunchbase predictions. In November, it completed a secondary share sale, boosting its valuation to $75 billion. That was a 67% jump compared to the $45 billion that Revolut was valued at in August 2024 when it announced a separate secondary share sale to provide liquidity to employees. Investors include Coatue, Greenoaks, Dragoneer Investment Group, Fidelity Management & Research Co., Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures, Andreessen Horowitz and Franklin Templeton. Revolut has seen impressive growth since its 2015 inception. In 2025, it achieved $1 billion in annualized revenue and surpassed a 65 million customer base across 100 countries. The company likely won’t IPO until it secures its full U.K. banking license, for which it is still awaiting approval.
Monzo: Monzo, another U.K.-based banking platform, is also said to be eyeing an IPO in 2026 and Crunchbase pegs a “very likely” prediction for an offering too. Timing of the IPO is so sensitive for the company now that its CEO TS Anil was pushed out of the head role due to his reported attempts at a listing earlier than some directors apparently wanted. He also reportedly indicated he might leave soon after. In June, Monzo reported revenue of more than $1.35 billion and “a sharp rise” in annual profit. It also increased its customer base by 25% to 12.2 million in its last fiscal year. The company was valued at $5.9 billion in October 2024 after selling shares to a group of existing investors. Backers include General Catalyst, HSG, Accel, Stripe and Thrive Capital.
— Mary Ann Azevedo
An IPO prediction is never a promise. But as market conditions shift and investor appetite broadens, these companies are flashing more of the signals that tend to precede a public offering.
Methodology
Crunchbase’s IPO predictions utilize Crunchbase data — including funding and valuation, and milestones such as financial growth, key leadership hires, market share expansion and headcount growth — to forecast the likelihood of a private company launching an IPO, providing a probability score and its supporting evidence. Read more about Crunchbase’s Predictions & Insights and its methodology for IPO predictions here.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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