After years of stalled listings, market whiplash and cautious boardrooms, the IPO market appears poised for an unprecedented reopening in 2026, one that could finally bring trillions of dollars in long-private companies back to public markets.
For much of the past decade, private companies have delayed public debuts amid rising interest rates, volatile equity markets, regulatory uncertainty surrounding tariffs and an abundance of late-stage private capital that reduced the urgency to list. The result is a historically large backlog of mature, scaled companies that look and operate like public enterprises but remain privately held.
Some estimates suggest as much as $2.9 trillion in private-company value has remained sidelined during this period. Bankers, investors and secondary-market platforms increasingly believe that the logjam is beginning to break. If it does, 2026 could emerge as the most consequential IPO year since the post-financial-crisis boom.
"If you're talking about IPOs that reshape a year, you're talking about mega-cap private companies reaching maturity," Evan Schlossman, principal at Suro Capital, a publicly traded venture fund, told The Daily Upside. "SpaceX would absolutely be one of those."
The IPO reopening will not resemble past cycles defined by broad participation and steady deal flow. Instead, as Schlossman observed, the IPO wave is likely to be driven by capital concentration: a small number of mega-cap private companies whose listings could absorb enormous amounts of institutional capital and determine how much room remains for everyone else.
Household Names Ready for Debut
Indeed, SpaceX is widely viewed as the most consequential potential IPO among the handful of names that have hovered over public markets for years. These companies are so large and influential, with many already household names, that their eventual listings could redefine the cycle itself.
Once narrowly perceived as a launch services company, SpaceX has evolved into a global aerospace and communications platform tied to the AI revolution. Its Starlink satellite network now generates recurring revenue, provides strategic geopolitical infrastructure and gives the company a valuation profile unlike anything public markets have previously encountered.
Estimates for a potential IPO range from $800 billion to well over $1 trillion, a scale that would make it the largest offering in history and help make its founder, Elon Musk, the planet's first trillionaire.
OpenAI occupies a similarly outsized position, though in a very different sector. As the flagship company of the generative AI era, OpenAI sits at the intersection of software, cloud infrastructure and platform economics. Any move toward public markets would not only test investor appetite for large-scale AI businesses but also establish valuation frameworks for an entire generation of AI-native companies. Market estimates for OpenAI's eventual public value span from the high hundreds of billions to over $1 trillion.
Anthropic, a major AI systems developer, is increasingly viewed as the most credible pure-play AI candidate for an IPO after OpenAI itself. With deep enterprise adoption and strong positioning in regulated markets, its estimated valuation — potentially around $350 billion — would place it firmly in mega-cap territory.
According to The New York Times, Anthropic and OpenAI have taken early steps toward going public. And SpaceX has interviewed banks to lead an IPO, two people with knowledge of the situation told the NYT.
Discord, while smaller in absolute terms, is another long-anticipated listing. The consumer communications platform has hundreds of millions of users and engagement that rivals major social networks, without relying primarily on advertising.
A Discord IPO would test whether public investors are willing to underwrite large consumer platforms built around subscriptions, communities and creator ecosystems rather than the traditional ad models.
Mega-IPO Math
Overall, the challenge heading into 2026 is not a shortage of companies capable of going public. It is a shortage of capacity.
"There are far more companies that want to go public than the market can possibly ingest," Phil Haslett, co-founder of EquityZen, told The Daily Upside. "When you introduce a company like SpaceX or OpenAI into the equation, it doesn't replace one or two IPOs, it replaces 10 or 20."
Institutional investors must commit massive amounts of capital to participate meaningfully in trillion-dollar-scale offerings. That forces portfolio managers to make zero-sum allocation decisions, often crowding out smaller, but still viable, IPOs, Haslett says. As a result, the sequencing of deals becomes as important as overall market conditions, he adds.
This dynamic suggests that 2026 may be defined less by the total number of IPOs and more by which companies go first. The success or delay of a small cluster of mega-deals may directly determine how wide the IPO window remains for everyone else.
Deep Bench of Private Companies
Beyond the headline giants, a deep bench of long-private companies is waiting in the wings, many of them operating at public-market scale.
Databricks, valued at north of $130 billion, is often cited as one of the "cleanest" large-cap tech IPO candidates. Its data analytics and AI-infrastructure business is well understood by public investors, with clearer comparables and revenue visibility than many AI-native peers.
Stripe, with an estimated valuation of $90 billion to $120 billion, is one of the most durable fintech IPO prospects of the past decade. Its payments and financial infrastructure products are deeply embedded in global digital commerce, making it a rare non-AI listing that could still command enormous investor demand.
International and consumer-facing companies also feature prominently in the 2026 conversation. Revolut, the rapidly growing global digital bank, could signal renewed confidence in consumer fintech. Canva, the design and productivity platform, has long been viewed as IPO-ready with broad monetization appeal. Even companies like Strava, a fitness and social tracking platform reported to have confidentially filed, suggest that consumer tech may once again find a receptive public audience.
Crypto-native firms are also re-entering the discussion. Ripple, whose regulatory position has improved meaningfully, could become one of the first major blockchain infrastructure companies to return to public markets at scale.
Collectively, these companies represent well over $3 trillion in potential market capitalization, enough to dominate issuance calendars and absorb a substantial share of institutional equity allocations.
Insatiable Appetite in Pre-IPOs
Despite the constraints imposed by mega-deals, evidence of renewed IPO momentum is building.
"We're seeing a pretty strong backlog," Schlossman said. "If you look at reported filings and early activity just in the first weeks of the year, it's shaping up to be a strong 2026, assuming macro conditions remain relatively stable and favorable."
From EquityZen's perspective, investor demand appears to be leading the cycle. Haslett said interest in private companies on the platform has roughly doubled year over year, a trend he views as a forward indicator of IPO activity rather than a lagging one.
"Companies can't afford to stay private forever," Schlossman added. "They need access to capital, liquidity for shareholders and the credibility that comes with being public."
That pressure is particularly acute for employees and early investors holding large amounts of illiquid equity, a structural tension that private markets have struggled to resolve at scale, he says.
Bob's Discount Furniture
Perhaps the clearest signal that the IPO window is genuinely reopening is not coming from technology at all.
Bob's Discount Furniture, a Bain Capital–backed retailer, recently filed to go public — a move that carries outsized signaling value. Furniture and other consumer discretionary businesses are highly sensitive to interest rates, housing activity and consumer confidence. Historically, they are among the last sectors to access public markets when conditions are uncertain.
That underwriters are willing to bring such a company forward suggests a renewed belief in after-market stability and investor willingness to underwrite cyclical risk.
"When you see a broadening of sectors able to come public successfully, that's usually a sign of strength," Schlossman said.
One of the defining tensions of this cycle is simply how large private companies have become.
"I don't think it's sustainable to have 10 or 20 companies worth half a trillion dollars or more sitting in private markets," Haslett said. "That's so much value that can't fully take advantage of public-market infrastructure."
Public markets provide liquidity, financing flexibility, acquisition currency and financial planning tools that private markets still struggle to replicate, particularly at a trillion-dollar scale. Either private-market liquidity evolves dramatically, or these companies will eventually be pushed into public view.
Overall, for the first time in years, the IPO pipeline looks less theoretical and more imminent. And if these listings succeed, they may not just reopen the market but also redefine it.
Written by Jennifer Ablan
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