Last year's investors' dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not disappeared entirely, as the year approaches its halfway mark.
2024 saw four venture-backed tech IPOs in March and April – Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta, and Rubrik – that looked like they could fuel the momentum this year that investors had been hoping for in 2023. But a secondary investor and IPO lawyer recently told TechCrunch: Despite these four successes, the IPO market will not fully reopen until 2025 due to macro conditions such as the upcoming presidential election and rising interest rates.
This year is still expected to be better than 2023, and we'll likely see several more public filings throughout the year. Companies including Klarna and Shein appear to be close to working with bankers, but IPO timelines remain murky.
In most cases, it may be easier to figure out who is who. Not like that This year it's revealed, not who. Some CEOs of late-stage startups have directly stated that they will not IPO in 2024, while others have taken financial steps that suggest a public listing is not imminent. Some of the venture-backed technology companies not expected to hit the public markets this year include:
- play The B2B fintech has no plans to IPO in 2024, CEO Zach Perret said at an Axios event in March. This echoes what TechCrunch's Mary Ann Azevedo reported in October after the company hired a new CFO. Plaid's most recent valuation was valued at $13.4 billion in 2021.
- Designing a unicorn figma It hasn't directly said it won't do an IPO this year, and its actions point in that direction. Last May, the company conducted an open offering allowing existing investors and employees to sell their Figma shares on the secondary market if they so choose. This type of liquidity event typically does not occur immediately prior to a large liquidity event in an IPO. The public offer values the startup at $12.5 billion, which is lower than the $20 billion Adobe is willing to pay, but also higher than the $10 billion valuation Figma received in its last first round.
- stripe Earlier this year, a tender offer was conducted for current and former employees. Last February, the fintech unicorn announced a secondary sale that would value the company at a whopping $65 billion. This is lower than the $95 billion valuation the company earned in 2021, but the company is rebuilding its valuation. This is a sign that Stripe is likely to see its valuation tighten up a bit before it hits the public markets.
- AI cloud platform databricks It likely won't be in the plan for 2024 either. VC investors who predicted last year that this would be the first publicly traded company were probably disappointed. The company raised $500 million in new capital in a Series I round last fall, valuing the startup at $43 billion. Companies don't typically raise money right before a public listing, which is part of the IPO process, but investors who raised money in this round were crossover investors like T. Rowe Price. They are not investors who tend to oppose IPOs when market conditions improve, and they are in good shape to be one of the first listings in 2025 if they choose.
- Canva Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and husband of Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, told Australian and New Zealand tech publication Startup Daily: In March, it was said that an IPO would be at least 12 months away, if not until 2026. But lucky for US investors, Obrecht also confirmed that if the startup considers listing, it will do so in the US as well.
TechCrunch is monitoring the late-stage startup and exit market and will continue to update this article. If you have any tips or clarifications to share with us, please contact us here: rebecca.szkutak@techcrunch.com.
