Figma’s sensational IPO final week resurrected longstanding debates about IPO pricing and first day pops—an unsurprising response to the newly listed inventory’s 333% surge in its first days of buying and selling. As buyers dissect the providing (and as Figma’s inventory settles again a bit, falling 27% on Monday), different key questions have emerged: Will Figma’s debut entice different startups to leap into the fray, bringing an finish to the tech trade’s IPO drought? And in that case, who’s subsequent?
There’s an extended listing of late-stage VC-backed tech corporations with robust buyer bases that Wall Avenue funding bankers would like to take public. Many of those multi-billion greenback corporations, together with Databricks, Klarna, Stripe, and SpaceX, have been topics of IPO hypothesis for years. After which in fact, there’s the crop of richly valued AI startups, from OpenAI and Anthropic, to Elon Musk’s xAI.
These corporations will possible proceed to be within the highlight, however in conversations I had with a number of buyers following Figma’s debut, different names got here up as extra more likely to IPO sooner together with Canva, Revolut, Midjourney, Motive, and Anduril.
“Having optimistic IPOs is an effective sign for everyone,” says Kirsten Inexperienced, founder and managing associate at Forerunner Ventures, whose portfolio firm Chime just lately went public and skilled a 37% pop in inventory value on its first day of buying and selling. (Forerunner additionally has investments in public firm Hims & Hers and late stage personal corporations together with Oura.) “I consider we must always revisit this concept: an IPO is the Sequence A of being within the public market–and having that basically be a motivator to folks’s willingness, and perhaps even eagerness to go public.” (As if on cue, HeartFlow, a medical know-how firm, filed an S-1 for its IPO at a $1.3 billion valuation on August 1).
Kyle Stanford, the director of analysis on US enterprise capital at PitchBook, notes that simply 18 venture-backed corporations have gone public by means of June 30 of this 12 months. This, he says, is an element of coverage uncertainties that translate to funding headwinds in addition to the overfunding that occurred in 2021 that continues to stymie enterprise capital. “Figma hopefully begins to interrupt the dam, nevertheless it’s been a reasonably sluggish quarter,” he says.
Although Figma, which makes design software program, is worthwhile and has a powerful set of built-in AI capabilities, these qualities should not important to corporations certain for IPO success, says Stanford. He says that buyers would like corporations to generate a minimal of $200 million in income that grows at excessive charges and prioritize optimistic free money stream over profitability. Having an AI story can also be “crucial,” until the corporate could be very excessive progress and worthwhile by vast margins.
Canva could also be a most-compelling case because it’s a design firm with comparable fundamentals to that of Figma, mentioned a number of buyers I interviewed. Design collaboration firm Canva has raised about $589 million over 18 rounds at a $32 billion valuation, increased than that of Figma’s on the time of its IPO. “Canva is a giant winner in the case of what occurred yesterday with Figma,” says Jason Shuman, an investor at Major Ventures. Shuman, who shouldn’t be an investor in Canva, factors to Canva’s $3 billion annual income and 35% year-over-year progress as indicators of its enterprise’ sturdiness.
Others agree. “Canva—after taking a look at Figma, holy crap—they’re going to attempt to IPO as quickly as doable,” says Felix Wang, Managing Director and Accomplice at Hedgeye Threat Administration, who shouldn’t be a Canva investor. Canva, which was just lately valued at $37 billion throughout a share purchase again, didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Wang and others be aware that the surge in Figma’s value is, in some ways, not truly pushed by Figma. Relatively, the market is at an all-time excessive, inflicting retail dealer demand for corporations new to market. “They don’t even know this firm, however they understand it’s a brand new firm,” says Wang of retail merchants investing in Figma. “They’re going to place some cash into it, after which, extra curiously: they’re going to indicate it off on social media.”
As Figma is to Canva; NuBank is to Revolut, causes Major’s Shuman. He appears to be like at fintech NuBank, which is up round 13% from its early 2025 IPO and thinks that Revolut, which has a really comparable enterprise mannequin, might copycat. Revolut instructed Fortune in a press release: “our focus shouldn’t be on if or once we IPO, however on persevering with to broaden the enterprise, constructing new merchandise, and offering higher and cheaper companies to serve our rising world buyer base.”
One other potential IPO candidate within the near-future is chipmaker Cerebras, says Major’s Shuman, who invests in vertical AI, B2B, SMB and finance and protection corporations however has no stake in Cerebras or Revolut. (Cerebras filed an S-1 in September 2024 however its IPO was delayed by regulators involved a few $335 million funding by UAE-based G42. Now, it’s been cleared by regulators for a public market itemizing, however the firm has held off on an IPO because it fundraises $1 billion, reviews The Info.)
Many corporations, together with the most important and hottest personal firm OpenAI (which simply nabbed a $300 billion valuation, per the New York Instances), have vital incentives to stay personal. It’s because they’ll keep away from public scrutiny that arises from disclosures required of public corporations and have entry to vital personal capital for liquidity infusions which might be typically important.
But, the truth that behemoths like OpenAI, Stripe ($91 billion valuation) and SpaceX ($400 billion valuation) are personal could even be a hidden price for the general public market. “I’m going to get philosophical,” says Forerunner’s Inexperienced. “A part of the general public market was created so the broader inhabitants might take part within the financial system and within the progress of the financial system; it wasn’t meant to take a seat in a couple of folks’s fingers.”
One behemoth could also be coming into the inventory market limelight. Anduril, the protection tech firm that nabbed a $30.5 billion valuation on its Sequence G, has incentives to stay personal as a result of nature of its enterprise. However Pitchbook’s Stanford predicts it to be the following tech IPO. Along with Anduril’s CEO saying it would “undoubtedly” change into publicly traded, its worth proposition is core to Trump Administration priorities in safety and protection, which might make it a scorching choose for buyers, Stanford causes.
“Aside from that,” he says the listing of potential IPO candidates nowadays is lengthy: “There’s in all probability about 300 different corporations that it may very well be.”
