After several uneven years for public offerings, the IPO market is making an explosive comeback. For employees at companies approaching a potential listing, that shift creates a limited but important window to prepare for decisions that can have long-term financial consequences. As this IPO wave unfolds, we’ll periodically share our perspectives here.
Before discussing specific planning considerations in future articles, it is worth understanding how the current IPO environment differs from prior cycles.
How the IPO Market Has Changed
IPO activity has always moved in waves. The surge in listings in 2020 and 2021 was fueled by exceptionally low interest rates, abundant liquidity, and strong investor demand for growth companies. That environment changed quickly as inflation accelerated and borrowing costs moved higher, leading many companies to postpone or abandon listing plans altogether.
By 2025, signs of recovery had started to emerge. IPO issuance improved meaningfully, and capital raised reached its strongest levels since 2021, despite continued market volatility.
The companies now preparing to go public look materially different from many of those that entered the market during the prior cycle. They have generally spent longer as private companies, built scale, and are going public at unprecedented market capitalizations. They have often focused more on strengthening operations and improving paths to profitability before pursuing public capital. Investors have changed too; they are now placing greater emphasis on sustainable revenue growth, operational discipline, and clearer pathways to profitability.
The Next Wave of IPO Candidates
The pipeline for 2026 and 2027 includes several of the world’s most closely watched private companies. SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Canva and others continue to attract significant investor attention and interest in potential IPOs. Discord, Kraken, and Strava have reportedly taken more concrete steps toward potential listings through confidential filings. Infrastructure and AI-related businesses, including Cerebras Systems, have also benefited from sustained investor demand tied to compute capacity and data infrastructure as shown by their recent IPO.
At the same time, IPO timing remains highly unpredictable. Market conditions, regulatory developments, and company-specific considerations can delay offerings by quarters or even years.
Why Pre-IPO Planning Matters
For employees inside these organizations, the importance is straightforward: the period before an IPO presents the greatest flexibility for successful planning.
Once a company becomes public, valuations are set by the market rather than internal funding rounds. Liquidity becomes more visible but often remains constrained by lockup periods and trading restrictions. Tax considerations also tend to become more immediate and less flexible.
Importantly, IPOs themselves remain volatile events. Even successful offerings can experience meaningful price swings in the months following a listing, and long-term outcomes across IPO cohorts have historically been mixed.
That combination of opportunity, complexity, and uncertainty is why advance wealth planning matters. IPO windows open and close, and timelines frequently change. But for employees at companies nearing the public markets, the most valuable planning window is before the IPO.
