Name: A look at 2026 IPO contenders
Uploaded: 2025-12-17T17:23:44.044Z
Duration: 3 min 23 s
Description: Kristin Roth DeClark, Barclays global head of technology investment banking, joins ‘Money Movers’ to discuss the companies likely going public in 2026, the strength of the IPO market, AI bubble concerns, and more.

Kristin Roth DeClark, Barclays global head of technology investment banking, joins ‘Money Movers’ to discuss the companies likely going public in 2026, the strength of the IPO market, AI bubble concerns, and more.

The IPO market is projected to experience robust growth in 2026, with a notable increase in both the number and size of deals compared to previous years. A backlog of companies, including high-profile names such as SpaceX and OpenAI, is contributing to expectations for an active year, especially in the early months, due in part to delays caused by a government shutdown.

Industry leaders report that about half of the upcoming IPOs are private equity-backed, and deal sizes are trending larger to meet investor demand for liquidity. Experts anticipate that some of the largest IPOs, potentially exceeding $100 billion in market capitalization, could occur by the end of 2026 or into 2027, with institutional investors already preparing for these offerings.

A look at 2026 IPO contenders

Stock is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq later today under MDLN. This all as 26 looks to set another strong year for the IPO market with buzz surrounding SpaceX, OpenAI, and other likely contenders to go public in the new year. Joining us this morning at Post 9 to talk about all of that and more is Barclays Global Head of Tech Investment Banking, Kristen Roth DeClark. Welcome, Kristen. Good to have you back. Thank you. Great to see you. Some of the year-on-year comps are pretty good for 25, either the number of deals or certainly proceeds raised, right? Yeah, absolutely. We saw a meaningful increase in tech IPO volume 25 over 2024. The backlog we have going into 2026 is the largest backlog we've seen in over four years and growing. So you think that early part of the year next year will be more active than usual? Yeah. And actually, because of the government shutdown this year, a number of companies that were poised to come public towards the end of the year have waited. And January and February should be busier months than typical. Usually, the IPO window really starts to pick up in February, end of February, March, April, because you're waiting for full-year financials. This year, we're going to see a lot more volume, I think, in January. Just looking at today's IPO, Medline, and there are questions about what sponsors are going to do. How much of it is private equity-backed? Yes. I would say half of our backlog right now is our private equity-backed deals. And so it's a mix of venture-backed and private equity-backed. And I think the beginning of the year is going to be dominated by companies in the around $10 billion market cap area. One of the other trends we'll see is larger deal sizes. Liquidity is so important to investors right now. So the minimum deal size to kind of get every single tech IPO buyer engaged used to be $250 million, $300 million. Now it's more like $500 million. Doesn't mean we won't see some $300 million, $200 million tech IPOs, but you may not get the full audience of investors because of the importance of liquidity. When do we get the big ones, the open AI, SpaceX, you know, a few $100 billion IPOs? Yeah. So I think end of 2026, going into 2027, we could start to see $100 billion market cap companies start to come public. That means $20 billion-plus deal sizes, most likely. And the biggest question I'm getting from CEOs that are not in that category, thinking about 2026 as a window, is there going to be an air pocket caused by these companies coming public? Is there an oversaturation situation? And the short answer to that is no. The anchors that are going to, the companies, the institutions that are going to anchor those large deals, many of them already have positions in the companies privately, are planning for the IPO. We've also had, you know, there's a lot of dry powder built up over the last four years for tech IPOs. And so there's appetite coming into the year for the $10-ish billion market cap companies. So what do you tell when they come to you and say, what's the environment going to be next year? And obviously you guys think it's ripe. Why is that? Is it regulatory? Is it Fed cuts? It's, honestly, it's performance of a lot of these businesses. And so it is, there's more confidence in projections, I think, for a lot of the CEOs because they've scaled longer. They've scaled privately. They're more mature companies. They have a track record of execution. And so they're coming to a market at a time when they have more confidence in the forward.

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