Amid elections, geopolitical tension, high interest rates, and wider economic uncertainty, a robust U.S. stock market has seen Initial Public Offering (IPOS) activity skyrocket this year. Proceeds raised through IPOs on U.S. exchanges during the first three quarters of the year exceeded 2023’s full-year performance.
Across 121 deals, IPO proceeds have raised $27.3 billion, including 17 deals that raised more than $500 million, 12 deals raising more than $100 million, and one deal raising over $5 billion, the largest of the year.
Globally, a total of 551 new listing deals raised a combined total of $52.2 billion during the first half of the year. Capital funding deals have been declining, with the first six months of the year registering a 12% decline in new IPO capital. In total, year-over-year proceeds have fallen by 16% in 2024.
Tensions have been mounting across the majority of economies. Some nations, including the U.S., are still grappling with the aftermath of the pandemic, including years of high inflation and eye-watering interest rates.
Fortunately, the political and economic turbulence the market has faced in recent months has done little to shake up the U.S. equities market. The S&P 500 benchmark has gained more than 20% since the beginning of the year through to November 5. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has climbed over 23% year-to-date (YTD), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up a modest 11% YTD.
Despite the bullish market keeping strong, looking ahead, analysts expect next year’s market and IPO calendar to be edging closer toward a cautionary zone, as tensions in the Middle East and Russia continue to bring more uncertainty for investors.
Five IPOs To Watch In 2025
Market conditions will continue to fluctuate over the coming months, with election news covering much of the media headlines and the U.S. Federal Reserve pushing to make further interest rate reductions before the close of 2024.
However, looking towards 2025, several companies are expected to hit the public market, with upcoming IPOs scheduled within the first few months of 2025, and some household names looking to court investors ahead of the trading year.
Klarna
Valuation: $20 billion
With over twenty years of experience, and serving millions of customers, Klarna, Europe’s largest financial technology provider has been headlining talks in recent years to begin trading publicly on the European and U.S. markets.
The Swedish-based company recently announced a secondary share sale ahead of its upcoming IPO, which is scheduled for some time in 2025. The company has obtained backing from both Sequoia Capital and Softbank, with consulting from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan.
The planned listing, which will either take place in the first or second quarter of next year will form part of the company’s larger strategy to tap into new capital markets and gain more global exposure in uncharted territory.
Klarna already has a strong presence among European consumers. A global survey found that Swedes and Fins were among the top users of the platform, with eight out of ten Swedish consumers reporting to have used Klarna for online purchases. Currently, Klarna’s U.S. market penetration stands at 12%, compared to Sweden’s 77% and Finland’s 68%.
Klarna’s service network is massive, with over 550,000 global retailers and partners, and there is still plenty of room for growth, should the company begin to expand in more international markets.
StubHub
Valuation: $16.5
There were a few unexpected moments in the entertainment industry this year, but one moment many have been waiting for is the initial public offering of the ticket exchange and resale platform, StubHub.
This year, Stubhub said that it was planning an IPO, and was hoping to be trading on U.S. exchanges by the summer, however, the plans were quickly scrapped due to choppy market conditions and a sudden sell-off of tech stocks that swept across indices.
While the events and entertainment ticket company has already filed and submitted the necessary paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), sources working on the deal have said that the market has been undergoing uncertain shifts, which in turn meant that the company has postponed its IPO until 2025.
StubHub is well-positioned to take advantage of the events and entertainment market, with at least 83 percent of current users showering loyalty and support for the company, according to a survey conducted in 2023.
Over the last two years, major performances such as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and a growing interest in women’s sports have seen more consumers turning to Stubhub for their ticket-purchasing needs. In one report by Stubhub, the company noticed that U.S. buyers’ travel to international events soared by 80% last year.
There has been a strong rebound in the events and performances industry, and Stubhub is positioned to take better advantage of the rise in consumer interest. The time leading up to the company’s IPO hasn’t been all smooth sailing, and a lawsuit filed by Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said that the company has been misleading buyers, advertising tickets at lower prices before ramping up prices with hidden fees before check-out.
The company has since responded to these allegations and has said to remain compliant with federal regulations, and has been working with federal and state authorities to find a more workable solution.
Reliance Jio
Valuation: $100 billion
It’s been nearly five years since Indian billionaire, and Asia’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani released a forward-looking timeline on when investors could expect an IPO for the telecommunications company, Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail.
That timeline is starting to show signs of maturing in the coming months following a report by Reuters saying that Ambani has been in talks with Indian authorities to release a Mumbai IPO in 2025, with retail options expected much later.
Reliance Jio, an Indian-based telecom company, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms is an operator of broad-based LTE networks and offers multiple 5G, 4G, and 4G+ services. The company is one of India’s biggest telecom operators, with more than 479 million customers, and has quickly become a dominant player in the domestic market.
Analysts currently value the company at over $100 billion, and an expected IPO is now in the works, however, U.S. retail investors will have to wait a bit longer before the company will be available on U.S. indices.
Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) have seen the company investing heavily in new technologies that would allow them to provide better services to existing customers, and open new ventures in the field of AI infrastructure.
Reliance Jio has already partnered with several big-tech household names including Google, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. But there are bigger competitors that Jio has been coming face to face with, as Elon Musk looks to launch his Starlink internet services in India. A launch date has yet to be made available.
Jio’s mammoth footprint in India proves that the country’s digital space has been developing at an accelerated pace, creating more room for future growth and new opportunities in a space that has seen strong support over the last several years.
Cerebras
$7-$8 billion
The last three years have seen investors pouring billions of dollars into AI-focused companies. This year already has seen investors pump more than $26.8 billion into 498 generative AI deals, according to an estimate by Pitchbook.
Investors are going big on artificial intelligence, and Cerebras, an AI chipmaker is looking to cash in on the hype, looking to sell Wall Street on an alternative to Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Cerebras, a California-based company, has been around since 2015, and only more recently has started making headlines as it’s looking to court investors on its ability to become a competing name in the AI chip-making space.
There has already been plenty of coverage on Cerebras’ would-be IPO, but several challenges stand in the way of the company being available on the stock market in the near future.
A recent CNBC segment highlighted that although the company has seen sales triple over the last two years, Cerebras heavily relies on a single buyer, which currently represents more than 87% of the company’s revenue in the first half of 2024.
The Abu Dhabi-based, G42, which is backed by Microsoft is one of Cerebras most valued customers, having committed more than $1.42 billion in product and service purchases this year.
Despite the backlash, Cerebras is committed to doubling its $4 billion valuation through an IPO which is projected to launch in 2025. Although the company has made some impressive financial gains in recent years, there’s still plenty of room for more clarification on how the company expects to dominate, and perhaps overtake big leagues such as Nvidia before investors will be fully convinced.
Stripe
Valuation: $70 billion
For quite some time, rumors have been circulating that Stripe is looking to go public in the coming years, however, company founders and brothers John and Patrick Collison have stayed silent on the matter, only giving vague indications on when investors could expect the company to hit the public stock exchange.
However, those who have been following the company for some time might have noticed that Stripe has been acting more like a public company in recent months, publishing letters stating their financial performance for 2022 and 2023.
For the people that don’t already know, Stripe is a financial services and software company that processes transactions for debit and credit cards. Last year, Stripe processed more than $1 trillion in payment volume, which was a 25% increase compared to 2022.
Though the letters the company released earlier this year do not give much indication of whether the co-founders of Stripe are looking to take the company public next year, some sources close to the matter say that there has been speculation for some time that the company is perhaps in the process of considering an IPO.
What is however clear is that Stripe remains a dominant player in the electronic payment and transaction space. Globally, Stripe sits on a 17% market share of the online payment processing technologies market, second to PayPal, which dominates with a 45% market share.
The ever-green online retail space has seen Stripe now being used by over 3 million vendors and merchants, which in turn has seen the company generate more than $14 billion in revenue by 2022.
Investors will need to keep an eye on Stripe in the coming months. There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful that the company will go public, and early investors will likely benefit from the company’s ability to dominate an ever-growing marketplace.
Finishing Thoughts
Next year is already shaping up to bring a host of new opportunities for investors, however, this doesn’t come without plenty of uncertainty. With several big names looking to go public, investors can begin gearing up for yet another eventful year on the stock market.
