Super private companies that have long remained in the private equity market are now concentrating on selling equity to the public market. In the first half of 2026, traditional IPO fundraising in the U.S. reached approximately $114.2 billion, over seven times the $14.8 billion in the same period of 2025; including follow-on offerings, by the end of June, U.S. IPOs and refinancings totaled about $251 billion, setting a record for the same period.

The volume is supported by a few names. SpaceX went public in June, pricing its valuation at approximately $1.75 trillion to $1.77 trillion, raising about $85.7 billion after exercising the over-allotment option, surpassing Saudi Aramco's 2019 record and exceeding the previous largest U.S. IPO, Facebook, by about 17 times in valuation terms. AI chip company Cerebras raised about $5.5 billion to $5.6 billion, with its opening price rising about 89% from the issue price. SK Hynix raised about $26.5 billion in its U.S. stock issuance. As of late July, there have been about 86 IPOs in the U.S. this year, raising about $251 billion, more than five times the $47.4 billion raised in all of 2025, with SpaceX accounting for about one-third of that.

The queue still consists of private giants. Anthropic secretly submitted its listing documents in June after a private valuation of about $965 billion, aiming for October; OpenAI submitted a confidential S-1 after a private valuation of about $852 billion, targeting a valuation close to $1 trillion, with a timeline fluctuating between the end of this year and 2027. Databricks has pushed its listing to 2027 while raising its valuation from about $134 billion to about $188 billion to $190 billion and continues private fundraising. Companies like Csquare, supported by Brookfield, Inspire Brands under Roark, and Jersey Mike’s supported by Blackstone are also in confidential filings. Anduril, Discord, Kraken, and Strava appear on banks' watch lists.

On the private equity side, there is another wave of "going public." Medline has become one of the largest private equity-backed IPOs in U.S. history, while Europe's Verisure has set a local record for private equity-backed listings. However, according to PitchBook, as of June 30, there are still 33,575 unsold companies in private equity portfolios, up from 32,451 at the end of last year and 15,923 a decade ago. Since 2022, only about 70 private equity-backed companies have gone public in the U.S. In London, the opposite is true: private equity is buying listed companies, with Bodycote at about £1.8 billion and Gamma at about £1.1 billion being subject to takeover bids, and the total amount of UK listed companies being acquired this year is about $182 billion.

The private equity fundraising window is thus yielding. In July, U.S. growth equity fundraising was $20.6 billion, the smallest monthly amount since 2026. The secondary market has previously replaced IPOs when the window closed: in the twelve months leading up to mid-2025, secondary venture capital transactions totaled $61.1 billion, exceeding the $58.8 billion raised by venture-backed IPOs in the same period. Now, large companies are returning pricing power to public book building, while smaller companies remain largely in private and extension funds.

Mechanically, buyers are public funds, indices, and active growth accounts capable of digesting trillion-dollar order books; sellers are venture capital, employee options, and some sovereign funds that have endured until exit years. The event-driven factors are AI and aerospace capital expenditures pushing private companies' cash needs beyond the limits of private equity rounds. Funds are flowing from "internal valuation transfers" to tradable stocks. Beneficiaries are investment banks that can price and allocate, as well as already listed giant growth stocks; those under pressure are ordinary private equity portfolio exits and medium-sized issuers that must compete for orders with SpaceX in the same window. After going public, Cerebras saw its stock price return to near the issue price within a month, indicating that the opening of the window does not mean that all private labels can stand firm in the secondary market.

Source: Public Information