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A handful of technology start-ups expected to publicly list their shares next month has led to cautious optimism on Wall Street of a long-awaited “window” for initial public offerings, despite a surge in market volatility following US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies.
CoreWeave, an AI data centre operator, and Klarna, a Swedish fintech group, both filed for a New York IPO this month, fuelling hopes for an end to a three-year slump in large tech listings driven by high interest rates.
New Jersey-based CoreWeave plans to raise $4bn at a valuation of more than $35bn, which is expected to be the biggest stock market debut for a tech company this year, while Klarna is looking to raise more than $1bn and be valued at around $15bn.
One senior investment banker close to the IPOs of both companies said he expected these IPOs, plus around three others, as soon as next month. This could also include retail trading site eToro, which announced in February it had filed for a New York listing that could value the company at more than $5bn.
It comes as Google’s proposed $32bn takeover of cyber security start-up Wiz, announced on Tuesday, has also increased hopes of a more buoyant market for tech deals.
However, investors in start-ups that have been preparing behind the scenes to list their shares have expressed greater caution after markets were hit in recent weeks amid fears over the potential economic damage caused by Trump’s tariff announcements.
They pointed to specific needs for capital at each of the companies that have filed publicly to list, such as CoreWeave’s large debt pile and a competitive market for Klarna that has led to a slump in its valuation.
Fintech platform Chime and software provider Genesys both filed confidentially to list their shares late last year, but have now told investors their IPOs would likely happen much later in 2025, according to people close to the matter. Chime declined to comment and Genesys did not respond to a request for comment.
The volatility in the US has already impacted markets in Europe. German drugmaker Stada has this week delayed its upcoming IPO until September, citing recent stock market turbulence, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Stada on Tuesday said the company was “evaluating all options”, including a possible IPO, but said this was dependent on the “situation” in the financial markets.
Bankers at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan have pitched to investors that CoreWeave will be the first and largest of a handful of tech IPOs in April, opening a window for smaller companies to list their shares.
However, CoreWeave has not yet begun a roadshow to generate interest for its shares or given a date for its IPO, according to people close to the process. CoreWeave did not respond to a request for comment on its IPO preparations.
“The public market sentiment has changed so drastically in the last four to six weeks that most people will retreat back to calmer waters,” said Peter Hébert, co-founder and managing partner at $5bn venture firm Lux Capital, which owns stakes in several pre-IPO start-ups.
“Anyone publicly out there like CoreWeave is going to do everything possible to get a deal done, but anyone else who has filed confidentially is just watching. This is not a market environment anyone is interested in joining.”
Funds that own stakes in private tech companies have been clambering for ways to exit their positions in order to give liquidity back to their own investors.
An IPO boom in 2021 gave way to three sluggish years for deals, but investors had anticipated an uptick in public listings this year following the US election and as interest rates started to decline. The recovery has been prolonged, resulting in a backlog of companies staying private for record durations.
“Basically, if it doesn’t happen in April, then 2025 is going to be a complete dud [for IPOs],” said an adviser to several pre-IPO tech companies. He said there was “motivated wishful thinking” that the handful of listings would launch as soon as next month.
The aggregate valuation of all US start-ups is now over $4tn, more than double 2020, when it was $1.7tn, according to data from PitchBook. Some of the most valuable late stage start-ups, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, fintech group Stripe and AI data platform Databricks, explored whether to IPO as early as 2021 but have since put plans on hold and given no indication of new timelines to list their shares.
“Decisions regarding public filings and the timing of IPO roadshows are receiving greater scrutiny than earlier in the year,” said Mark Schwartz, EY’s IPO and Spac advisory leader. “The recent bout of market volatility has introduced concerns about how hospitable the next few months will be for IPOs in general and tech IPOs specifically.”
Additional reporting by Ivan Levingston in London and Florian Müller in Frankfurt
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