Among the year’s larger listings were AI cloud computing firm CoreWeave, Swedish buy-now, pay-later firm Klarna, and crypto plays Circle Internet Group and Bullish. In comparison, the London Stock Exchange saw only six companies go public through an IPO, raising just US$208 million or the lowest amount of capital raised through new listings in over three decades. Singapore IPOs raised US$2.5 billion through 38 new listings last year, while 60 new listings in Malaysia raised US$1.47 billion in 2025.
With the US market up over 100% from the lows of late 2022 and several of the giant artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups ready for public scrutiny, 2026 could turn out to be a blockbuster year for IPOs — much like 1999 was for Internet firms ahead of the March 2000 dotcom bubble burst. By some estimates private firms worth US$3.8 trillion are preparing to list this year.
The IPO roster for 2026 is already formidable. Even if only half of the top 10 companies — AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic; dual Toronto- and San Francisco-headquartered competitor Cohere; Elon Musk’s SpaceX; fintech firms Stripe and Plaid; London-based digital bank Revolut; emerging defence contractor Anduril Industries; Chinese fast fashion e-commerce platform Shein; and billionaire fashion influencer Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm Skims, which are reportedly preparing for a listing in 2026 — do actually list, it will be a truly blockbuster year, bigger than 1999 or 2000.
Two of the world’s largest tech start-ups — hectocorns (or private firms valued at over US$100 billion) SpaceX and OpenAI — are reportedly looking to raise between US$30 billion and US$60 billion at valuations of up to US$1.5 trillion each later this year.
Musk’s SpaceX owns Starlink, a low Earth orbit satellite constellation with 9,300 satellites in orbit. More than 68%, or over two of every three satellites in orbit, are now Starlink operated. SpaceX was valued at US$800 billion in an insider share sale in the secondary market last month. Musk has hinted at an IPO in 2026, raising more than US$30 billion at a valuation of at least US$1 trillion. The last time a company tried to raise that much money was in late 2020 when Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings, sought just over US$30 billion in an IPO that was abruptly pulled. Recently, Musk projected SpaceX’s revenues at about US$15.5 billion in 2025 and US$22 to US$24 billion this year.
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For its part, ChatGPT creator OpenAI needs a ton of money now and will probably seek to raise much more as part of its IPO later in the year, because, unlike SpaceX, it isn’t generating as much and is also expected to lose tens of billions between now and 2030. It was projected to rake in US$13 billion last year but generated only US$4.3 billion in the first half. It lost US$13.5 billion in the first half of last year. So, OpenAI is losing more than three times as much money as it earns in revenue. It also has huge infrastructure commitments — over US$1.4 trillion by 2030 — just to build data centres (DC).
Unlike rival Anthropic, which has a highly focused, corporate client-centric business model, OpenAI wants to sell mostly to consumers worldwide. It is also trying to build AI devices that will compete with Apple, take a share of advertising from Google and Meta Platforms, share in e-commerce from Amazon and control the whole value chain with its own infrastructure — not just DCs but chips and power plants as well — while also trying to peddle software and services, including an AI-powered super app. Unlike Google or Meta Platforms, which rely on cash flow from their legacy businesses to fund most of their AI spending, OpenAI’s CEO and co-founder, Sam Altman, is looking to borrow heavily and bring in an array of partners across all of its ventures. In October, it established a US$4 billion credit line with JPMorgan Chase and other big US banks. It has also turned to large private credit firms like Blue Owl to fund some of its projects. It’s a risky strategy and to pull it off, OpenAI will need to raise hundreds of billions of dollars over the next five years.
For now, OpenAI is trying to raise up to US$100 billion at a valuation of around US$750 billion. It also recently allocated US$50 billion to employee stock grants. The reason it is in a hurry to list is that it needs as much capital as it can get its hands on before the market turns sour on AI. Investment bankers say OpenAI could seek to raise at least another US$60 billion, or possibly more, during the IPO scheduled for the end of the year.
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Yet, the first big AI IPO off the gates this year won’t be SpaceX or OpenAI but Anthropic, whose AI chatbot and its large language models are both called Claude. The firm, whose shareholders include Amazon, Google and Salesforce, is currently raising US$10 billion at a valuation of US$350 billion. Among the investors in the round are Philippe Laffont’s tech-focused investment firm Coatue Management and Singapore’s GIC. To give you an idea of just how far and fast the AI start-up has come, Anthropic raised US$3.5 billion at a US$61.5 billion valuation just 10 months ago. It also recently sealed a partnership with Microsoft and Nvidia, who are pouring US$15 billion into the company in return for Anthropic committing US$30 billion to buy Microsoft Azure’s compute capacity powered by Nvidia’s chips. Anthropic’s primary focus is on corporate customers rather than consumers whom OpenAI is chasing. It has hired a bunch of Wall Street investment bankers and lawyers to create large language models that would perform some of the repetitive work currently done by those professionals. Anthropic expects to break even by the end of 2027.
Another hectocorn that is expected to file for an IPO in the second half of the year is the data analytics platform Databricks. It is seen as a key part of an emerging AI tech stack. At least 60% of Fortune 500 companies share their data with Databricks, which helps them manage, process and analyse large-scale data for AI and analytics, simplifying tasks from data engineering to machine learning and business intelligence. Data warehousing and analytics start-up just raised US$4 billion in a Series L funding round last month at a US$134 billion valuation to boost its data and AI platform. It also recently crossed a US$4.8 billion annual revenue run rate. Business in its key segments, data warehousing and AI, grew by 55% last year. It already generates free cash flow and expects to be profitable within a year.
The year 2026 will also see Stripe and Revolut, two well-known fintech firms that were supposed to file for an IPO last year, finally get to list on an exchange. Founded by Irish brothers, Patrick and John Collison, Stripe has emerged as a payments behemoth. It started as a firm that facilitated payments for small businesses, but these days, even large global e-commerce players use it. When you make a transaction on a website, it is quite likely that Stripe is facilitating that payment. When I pay Uber or Spotify, Stripe processes the payment. AI adoption, expansion into B2B, and stablecoins are helping Stripe grow even bigger. In 2024, Stripe processed over US$1.4 trillion in payments. Payment volumes are still growing 30% annually. Stripe’s actual revenues reportedly exceeded US$20 billion last year. Recently, Stripe bought back some of its own shares at a valuation of US$106.7 billion.
Another fintech firm listing this year is London-based neo-bank Revolut, which operates in 30 countries, mostly in Europe and the Middle East. It has 60 million personal customers and serves half a million small businesses. In November, a secondary sale valued Revolut at about US$75 billion. It issues credit and debit cards, takes deposits and offers a suite of wealth management products, including stocks, ETFs, gold, commodities and crypto trading. You can instantly transfer money to a friend or business associate halfway around the world, instead of the two or three days a bank wire transfer might take, and you can do it at a fraction of the cost commercial banks might charge.
President Donald Trump’s administration is also pushing for the privatisation of two US state-owned government-sponsored institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, through stock market listing in the second quarter. The duo play a key role in the US housing market, buying qualifying mortgages from lenders, bundling them into mortgage securities, and selling them to investors. That frees big American banks to make new loans, keeping credit flowing and rates lower for home buyers. They were nationalised by President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the bursting of the subprime housing bubble that triggered the 2008 global financial crisis.
If you thought AI is the only hot IPO theme around, you probably haven’t heard of Quantinuum, an affiliate of Honeywell International which merged its Quantum Solutions subsidiary with Cambridge Quantum in 2021. Quantinuum recently raised US$600 million at US$10 billion valuation. It is reportedly aiming for US$15 billion IPO. Several other smaller Quantum computing start-ups are readying their own IPOs, at least two of them through mergers with Spacs or blank-cheque special purpose acquisition companies. Bookending the big tech IPOs this year is Kardashian’s shapewear firm Skims, which recently raised US$225 million at a US$5 billion valuation. Kardashian, once just famous for being famous, personally owns a 35% stake in the business. Just her Skims stake is now worth US$1.75 billion. The Skims listing will make the best-known Kardashian sibling far richer, and indeed even more famous.
Assif Shameen is a technology and business writer based in North America
