Tech IPOs

What it is

A tech IPO is the first public sale of shares in a private technology company on a regulated stock exchange. The company files a registration statement with the relevant securities regulator (in the United States, an S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission; in Hong Kong, a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; in India, a DRHP with SEBI), investment banks underwrite the offering and build a book of institutional demand, and shares begin trading at a price set by that process. The primary exchanges competing for tech listings are Nasdaq in New York, the New York Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and India's NSE and BSE. Key underwriters are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan; key buyers at allocation are pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and mutual funds. Direct listings (no new capital) and SPAC mergers (blank-check shells) are alternatives; SPACs fell out of favor after the 2021 to 2022 cohort underperformed.

History

The template for modern tech listings was set in the 1980s. Microsoft went public on Nasdaq in March 1986, raising US$61m at US$21 per share. The dot-com boom from 1996 to 2000 brought hundreds of loss-making technology companies to market (Netscape in 1995, Amazon in 1997 at US$18 per share), and the 2000 to 2001 crash wiped out most of them. Google's 2004 IPO via Dutch auction raised US$1.7bn and restored credibility. Facebook's May 2012 listing was the largest US technology IPO to that date at US$16bn. The 2019 to 2021 window brought Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, and Palantir to market alongside a SPAC surge, most of which traded down sharply within twelve months. Rising US interest rates from early 2022 onward crashed the IPO market; 2023 saw the lowest US deal count in two decades.

Current state

The US market recovered sharply in 2024 and 2025. The SEC recorded 354 US equity IPOs in 2025, up from 218 in 2024, with total proceeds exceeding US$47bn. The Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector led by both deal count and proceeds. CoreWeave's listing in March 2025 was the largest US technology IPO since 2021.

The 2026 cohort is still forming. Quantinuum priced on Nasdaq on 4 June 2026 at US$60 per share, raising US$1.68bn at a US$14bn valuation, making it quantum computing's first major public listing. Hong Kong's market has been active: the exchange logged a triple IPO day on 29 June 2026, including the Luxshare listing, as the city works to recapture tech listing volume from New York. In India, OYO and Prism filed a combined DRHP with SEBI in 2026. The most anticipated US listing remains OpenAI's IPO, which CFO Sarah Friar has guided toward 2027 at a valuation near US$850bn to US$1tn, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan mandated. SpaceX continues to expand via acquisitions, including its purchase of Cursor in 2026, while remaining privately held; Elon Musk has consistently declined to take it public.

Relationships

Tech IPOs sit at the intersection of venture capital (which requires IPO or M&A exits to return capital to limited partners) and public equity markets. A healthy IPO window typically follows eighteen to thirty-six months of private market expansion, as VCs and late-stage growth funds seek liquidity. The US Federal Reserve's interest-rate policy is the single largest external variable: lower rates push investors toward growth equities and widen the gap between private and public valuations that makes debuts attractive. Hong Kong's competitiveness is shaped by China's regulatory posture toward outbound listings and by geopolitical tensions that complicate US listings for Chinese tech companies.

What to watch

• OpenAI's IPO timeline: whether the company prices in 2027 at the US$1tn level Altman considers a floor, or accepts a lower figure.
• Quantinuum's early earnings as a public company, testing whether markets sustain a 450x revenue multiple for pre-profit deep tech.
• Hong Kong's listing pipeline in late 2026, after the triple IPO day in June signaled renewed confidence.
• US Federal Reserve rate moves in the second half of 2026, which set the risk-appetite window for large tech debuts.
• AI infrastructure companies including xAI, Perplexity and Anthropic, whose private valuations have reached IPO-relevant scale.