After a shaky start to the year due to uncertainty about the Trump administration's tariffs and stock market volatility in the spring, activity in the initial public offering (IPO) market picked up in the third quarter of 2025.
According to Renaissance Capital, the 64 IPOs in Q3 raised a combined $15.3 billion, marking the biggest quarter of new issuance since 2021.
"Twenty-four IPOs raised $100 million or more, another post-2021 high, led by a wave of high-profile unicorns," wrote Renaissance Capital in its Q3 2025 Quarterly Review (pdf). "Renewed interest in growth stocks allowed many of these names to price above the midpoint, and while a few of the earlier IPOs had explosive debuts, like billion-dollar deal Figma's historic 250% pop, more rational appetite prevailed towards quarter end."
But the IPO market lost steam heading into the fourth quarter as the record-long government shutdown put a short-term halt to public offerings. October saw just 22 new listings, and November had half that, with the 33 total offerings raising a combined $5.5 billion.
Renaissance Capital does not expect a rush of offerings through year's end "due to a backlogged SEC, pressure on AI and other tech stocks, and the approaching holiday slowdown," but there are several names in the pipeline that could make their market debut before the new year. This includes medical supplies company Medline, whose $5 billion offering will market the biggest IPO since 2021.
More companies appear to be testing the waters, too, making now the best time to explore the most anticipated upcoming IPOs.
For those looking to gain exposure to these new stocks, it's imperative to have an understanding of what an IPO is before jumping in.
Having covered the most promising upcoming IPOs for Kiplinger for several years, I've crafted this latest list to spotlight larger, well-established companies that are sure to gain the attention of both Wall Street and Main Street.
Data is as of December 3. Where possible, we have provided reported expectations for timelines and/or valuations for the upcoming IPOs.
Company |
Industry |
Expected IPO timeline |
Wealthfront |
Automated wealth manager |
2025 |
Grayscale Investments |
Digital asset manager |
2025 |
Databricks |
Computer software |
2026 |
Solera |
Automotive software |
2026 |
Canva |
Design software |
2026 |
Avalara |
Tax software |
2026 |
PayPay |
Cashless mobile payments |
2026 |
Venture capitalist Andy Rachleff and Stanford University engineer Dan Carrol cofounded Wealthfront in 2018. They wanted to create an online platform to provide everyday investors access to sophisticated investment strategies, with an emphasis on low costs and tax efficiency.
First customers were primarily Silicon Valley tech employees and entrepreneurs. But Wealthfront would eventually expand its base to encompass Millennial and Gen Z professionals. It now has 1.2 million clients and $88.05 billion in assets under management.
In 2022, the company announced it was selling itself to UBS for $1.4 billion. The deal was abandoned, though both sides said they'd continue to explore ways to work together.
UBS also provided $70 million in financing, and Wealthfront has raised a total of $205 million over several rounds of funding.
The current interest rate environment makes now a good time for Wealthfront to complete an IPO, according to ESO Fund co-founder Scott Chou, because it earns more from client cash deposits. "If rates drop," Chou explains, "that margin shrinks."
Wealthfront priced its IPO in early December and is expected to start trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "WLTH" in mid-December.
Cryptocurrency has been one of the hottest categories for IPOs in 2025. Notable offerings include Circle Internet Group (CRLC), which is up 166% since its June debut as a publicly traded company, and Bullish Global (BLSH), which soared in its August market debut but is down 30% since then.
Other crypto companies are lining up to launch their own IPO. Among them is Grayscale Investments.
Grayscale, a top digital asset manager founded in 2013, filed its IPO paperwork with the SEC in mid-November, though there's no set timeline for its offering. Grayscale has approximately $35 billion in assets under management, and that figure is rising amid strong industry tailwinds.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is its flagship fund. It also offers vehicles to trade ethereum-focused themes, bitcoin miners and early crypto adopters, as well as income-focused ETFs that use option strategies.
The Trump administration has made improving the regulatory environment for the crypto industry a top priority. And more and more people are using and investing in digital assets – helped by a proliferation of crypto-focused ETFs.
Potential risk factors remain substantial – this is still an emerging technology, and crypto remains a highly volatile asset class.
And the bitcoin ETF sector is highly competitive, with players such as BlackRock (BLK) and Fidelity Investments. This is likely to mean pressure on investment fees.
Many companies are still struggling to get their data house in order. It's all over the place. Different teams using different systems, formats that don't match, files with missing information, or duplicated rows that throw everything off.
Fixing this isn't just tedious; it's a serious obstacle for anyone trying to use AI effectively.
That's the pain point Databricks was built around.
Its story begins in 2009 at UC Berkeley's AMPLab. Matei Zaharia, then a Ph.D. student, developed Apache Spark, a faster, more flexible way to process big data, especially compared to older tools like MapReduce.
Spark could handle large jobs in memory, making things such as streaming and machine learning more efficient.
A few years later, Zaharia joined up with some fellow researchers, including Ali Ghodsi and Ion Stoica. In 2013, they launched Databricks to bring Spark into the hands of enterprises. The company's platform made it easier to analyze large-scale data in the cloud.
One big innovation: Databricks introduced what it calls a "lakehouse" architecture. It's a hybrid model that merges the strengths of data lakes and warehouses, so users can manage raw and structured data in the same place, without jumping between tools.
Today, Databricks is powering data and AI efforts at over 10,000 organizations, including Comcast (CMCSA), Shell (SHEL) and Rivian Automotive (RIVN).
The company's growth hasn't gone unnoticed. According to a report in The Information, Databricks is currently in talks with investors to raise $5 billion in funding, giving it a $134 billion valuation.
So, why is Databricks eyeing an IPO?
There are a couple of good reasons. Going public adds transparency, which tends to matter for big enterprise customers.
But perhaps more important is having a publicly traded stock that makes acquisitions easier. And that's something Databricks is already doing at a steady clip. Recent deals include generative AI customization platform MosaicML and Neon, a serverless database platform.
While Databricks has not yet filed paperwork for a public offering, Ghodsi said in early 2025 that it would not be "a huge surprise to me if we were public" by 2026, according to CNBC.
In early 2005, business executive Tony Aquila founded Solera to develop software for risk management of the automotive industry. It didn't take him long to gain the interest of investors. A year later, he announced a $100 million funding round from GTCR, a private equity firm.
At the heart of the strategy were aggressive acquisitions, notably, Solera's purchase of the Claims Services Group from ADP for $975 million.
By 2007, Solera had launched an IPO, providing more resources for management's dealmaking. In 2015, Solera went private in a $6.5 billion transaction.
Fast-forward to today: Solera has completed more than 50 acquisitions and built an extensive platform for the purchase, underwriting and claims-processing for insurance, as well as the management of repairs, services, maintenance, fleet operations and valuations.
Solera has also established critical partnerships with 20 primary property and casualty insurance carriers, 130,000 repair shops and nine of the top 10 U.S. dealership groups.
The company's vast datasets create a key competitive advantage for Solera, enabling the construction of sophisticated AI models for improving claims management as well as vehicle repairs.
As for the financials, Solera generates hefty cash flow. For fiscal 2024, that figure was $1 billion on sales of $2.4 billion.
As for an upcoming IPO, the company filed its paperwork with the SEC in June 2024 but was delayed due to market volatility. Solera currently remains private.
Melanie Perkins got the idea for Canva when she was a student at the University of Western Australia. While tutoring graphic design, she observed students struggling with tools such as Adobe (ADBE) Photoshop.
Perkins knew there had to be a better way. So she teamed up with Cliff Obrecht to create an online service for designing yearbooks.
Within a few years, their brainchild would grow into Canva, as they created a general-purpose design tool. In the first year, it attracted over 750,000 users. The momentum would not let up, either.
Today, Canva has more than 220 million users, and revenue is estimated to exceed $3 billion.
In 2013 – after more than 100 rejections – Perkins and Obrecht raised their first round of capital. In August, the company held an employee stock sale at a valuation of $42 billion, up from $32 billion a year earlier.
So, does this mean an IPO is not in the cards? Not necessarily. In a recent podcast interview, Obrecht said that market conditions are more appealing now. In other words, a public offering could happen sometime next year.
Avalara launched an IPO in the summer of 2018, raising $180 million. Shares shot up 87% on the first day of trading. Four years later, management announced an $8.4 billion going-private transaction led by private equity giant Vista Equity Partners.
Founded in 2004, Avalara develops software to help customers manage advanced tax and compliance requirements. It serves more than 41,000 customers and 1,400-plus partner integrations. In all, the platform has processed and filed more than six million tax returns.
According to Fitch, fundamentals are solid: "Avalara is positioned for strong growth, supported by favorable industry tailwinds."
As Fitch notes, Avalara serves the U.S. tax compliance software market and its estimated total addressable value of approximately $15 billion.
Its focus area is the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment, which represents more than half of the total market and is less penetrated compared to bigger enterprises.
So, what’s next? Of course, Avalara is preparing to go public again. In July, management revealed it had submitted a confidential Form S-1 filing with the SEC.
In 2018, SoftBank Group and Yahoo Japan formed the PayPay joint venture to create a QR-and bar-code-based payment app. Teaming up with Paytm – India's top fintech outfit – was the key to developing this technology.
That strategy would certainly pay off. Through Yahoo Japan's huge distribution, the PayPay app would quickly dominate the Japanese market. During its first year in operation, PayPay attracted more than 20 million registered users.
User count is now up to 70 million, which is more than half the population in Japan and about two-thirds of smartphone users.
The company has also been effective in monetizing that user base. Revenue jumped from $1.28 billion in fiscal 2023 to $1.93 billion in fiscal 2024, representing a 51% year-over-year increase.
According to Bloomberg, PayPay has made a confidential filing for an IPO in the U.S. market, with an estimated valuation of $20 billion.
IPOs can be a great way to invest in early-stage growth companies, and gains can potentially be massive.
Then again, the risks can be substantial. "Market history is littered with examples of 'hot' IPOs that have gone on to become market duds," said Ed Ciancarelli, senior portfolio manager at Focus Partners.
"Lyft, Inc (LYFT) went public at $72 on March of 2019 after pricing above the expected range of $62 to $68 per share," Ciancarelli notes. "LYFT closed the first day of trading at $78 and has not seen that level since. Such broken IPOs become the victim of an overly exuberant market and unattainable expectations."
An IPO should be considered a higher risk category for your portfolio. For example, it might be best to allocate no more than 5% to 10% in these types of investments.
Before investing in an IPO, you might want to wait until the excitement subsides.
"Be patient and wait for the stock price to have its inevitable dip prior to investing," suggests Jeff McClean, CEO at Solidarity Wealth. "Unless you are one of the lucky few who have access to pre-IPO stock at reasonable valuations, patience is the best course."
Moreover, it's a good idea to read the S-1, a regulatory filing that includes important information about the company that is planning to go public. Make sure to focus on the prospectus summary, risk factors and the letter from the founders.
