What defines today's IPO market, and what can investors expect for the remainder of 2026?
2026 is set up to be a record-breaking year for three reasons. One, resilience. Two, timing. And three, the pipeline. The pipeline is enormous this year. But in order to get to 2026, we have to see how we got here. So, let’s go back to 2020, 2021.
Interest rates are at zero. Everybody’s locked inside due to Covid. Work from home technology is the centrepiece of our life, and we saw tons of capital coming into startups and IPOs. 2021, there (were) 700 IPOs. A lot of them were SPACs, which were companies that dissolved after two years. A lot of them were new companies that failed, and some of them are companies that are still around. However, we saw that bubble burst in 2022. So, we were in recovery mode in the IPO market ’22, ’23, ’24. Last year, finally, we break out. In 2025, 200 IPOs are priced, raising US$40bn. It’s a really good year, it’s above average, but it’s important to know where we came from.
So, setting up into ’26, we’ve seen – despite the headlines – we’ve seen almost 50 IPOs have priced, raising US$14bn. That’s despite oil prices doubling, interest rates going up, headlines, and tweets and politics – you name it. So, the resiliency is showing, number one that 2026 could be a really good year. Number two is timing. The reason I mention 2020 and 2021, is a lot of these companies raised capital. Typically, if you’re a private company, you’re going to raise three to five years’ worth of capital. Now we’re at that 5-year end point. Companies either need to liquidate, or they need to raise additional money to continue with that growth. So again, that’s 26 coming from 21. And then finally, the pipeline. The resiliency plus the timing equals the pipeline. We’re talking about rocket companies, we’re talking about AI companies, software companies, chip companies, energy companies, restaurants, that all could go public this year. So last year, like I said, 40 billion dollars raised. There could be over US$100bn raised this year just because of the big companies that are going public. And we could see nearly 300 IPOs after 200 last year.
So, I think, again, the timing of this couldn’t be better, the resiliency of the market which is leading up to this pipeline which is getting everyone super excited for fresh ideas that could come to the market to replace where everyone is today.
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