Fall IPO flow is a question mark

This year’s IPO market will be remembered for the rise of mega offerings like SpaceX’s $75 billion deal, which is expected to get bumped by the super-gigantic pending $100 billion IPO of Anthropic. But this year could also go down as the time when software lost its IPO dominance.

Just one software company, Liftoff Mobile, has listed this year, according to Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO research and IPO-focused ETFs. Liftoff, an ad tech firm, raised $437 million in June, downsized from initial plans for $711 million.

“Usually, software is a pretty reliable source of deal activity in a healthy IPO market,” Matt Kennedy, Renaissance’s senior IPO strategist, told CFO Brew.

Last year, nine sizable software IPOs took place, according to Renaissance Capital, including Figma, which rose 250% on its first trading day. Eight software businesses went public in 2024.

This year, the so-called SaaS-pocalypse wiped out $2 trillion in software market value in February, which “reset a lot of valuations and expectations,” Kennedy said. AI infrastructure emerged as one of the most popular sectors, producing the $26.5 billion IPO from SK Hynix and Cerebras Systems’ $5.5 billion offering. 

“A lot of these pre-IPO [software] startups thought that 2026 was going to be the year, and then, interestingly enough, AI, the new theme, kind of killed the old,” Kennedy said.

As of September 15, 106 US companies have gone public, raising $145.8 billion, according to Renaissance, which tracks proposed IPOs with an initial market cap of at least $50 million. Compare that with 202 deals for all of 2025 that collected $44 billion. More than half of this year’s $145.8 billion came from SpaceX.

Autumn issues. As with Oscar-contending films, fall is often one of the busiest times for launches, with some of the biggest names—Airbnb, Instacart, DoorDash, and Birkenstock—having debuted in the September–December period. Kennedy said he expects a “moderately active Q4” this year, but “it’s not gonna be a blowout.”

This fall’s heavy hitter, Anthropic, is expected to list in October and could raise as much as $100 billion. Rival OpenAI may wait until 2027 but could accelerate its listing “if Anthropic does well,” Kennedy said. OpenAI is reportedly seeking a new pre-IPO funding round that would value it at $1.2 trillion. Though Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, said the company would not go public this year, as Fortune reported on Sept. 12, “We’re not counting them out of the running yet,” Kennedy said.

If you’re on the fence. CFOs considering taking a company public this quarter should know that AI infrastructure is the “dominant theme” this year, Kennedy said. Anything that connects to the sector, including “industrial companies, power producers, data centers, [and] equipment suppliers,” will have an edge. Aerospace and defense, as well as consumer brands, healthcare and biotech, and financial companies, are also making a showing, he added.

Right now, investors want profitability and growth in IPO candidates, according to Kennedy. “If they don’t see it, then they’re really going to want a valuation that gives some cushion for upside,” he said. “I think there [are] some companies like Anthropic that [have] growth; [it has] supposedly adjusted operating margins that are close to break-even. So some names will probably get some interest without people needing to even open up the prospectus.”