Turo, a car rental start in San Francisco, is trying to become public by 2021, but an unstable stock market in early 2022 has delayed its listing. Since then, the company has been waiting for the right time.
Last week, Turo pulled his listing entirely. “Now is not the right time,” said Andre Haddad, chief executive of the company, in a statement.
For months, investors have eagerly predicted a wave of initial public bids, promoted by President Trump’s new administration. Since its electoral victory in November, which ended a hectic campaign period, Corporate America and Wall Street have caused the start of a deadline for regulation. The stock market was climbed in front of an expected Bonanza for the construction of an agreement.
However, administration’s pricing announcements and rapid fire regulatory changes have created uncertainty and volatility. Inflation deterioration has begun the market jitters. And the appearance of the Chinese Deepseek artificial intelligence application last month challenged investors to challenge their optimistic bets on US technology, leading to a drastic sale between shares associated with the AI.
All that has influenced the original public offers. “The diary went from full reservation to be widely open over a three -week period,” said Phil Haslett, founder of Equityzen, a space that helps private companies and their employees sell their stock.
So far, the rate of public bids is ahead of last year, with companies raising $ 6.6 billion from lists, increasing 14 % compared to this time last year, according to Renaissance Capital, which manages the stock markets with IPO-secured stock markets.
However, there are no evidence of the IPO wave that many had predicted, especially from a long -name -name companies that had passed in the last two years waiting to go public. In addition to Turo’s canceled list, Cerebras, an AI Chip company that has submitted its investment newsletter last fall, has also delayed plans to make it public.
It is too early to know if macroeconomic concerns about inflation, interest rates and geopolitical dangers will force other companies to change their plans, IPO and analysts said. More lists are expected in the second half of the year.
“We need to allow a little more time to see where the administration is starting to land on some of these key issues that lead some of the uncertainty,” said Rachel Gerring, IPO leader for America in EY, an accounting and professional services company. “IPO programming still happens a lot.”
Klarna, a lending start, and Etoro, a investment and trade provider, have filed confidential to list their shares in recent months. But many of the most valuable private technology companies, including Stripe and Databricks, have stated that they are planning to remain private for now, raising funds from the private market.
David Solomon, Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, said last month that one reason that the IPO activity was slow was that newly established businesses could get the capital needed by private investors. Goldman has helped Stripe, starting $ 70 billion worth, increasing billions of dollars last year, he said.
“This is a company that would never be a private company today, as their capital needs, but today you can,” he said in a conference organized by Cisco.
To further facilitate pressure to make public, Stripe has let its employees and shareholders sell some of their reserves on a regular basis in recent years, allowing them to redeem so that they do not push the company to record. Transactions, known as bids, also to solve the problem of shares of workers who expire and help employees pay tax -related tax taxes.
The number and size of bids increased in 2024, according to Carta, a location that helps newly established businesses manage their shareholders. Carta’s customers made 77 bids in 2024, from 68 in 2023, increased $ 3.5 billion last year, more than twice the $ 1.7 billion in 2023.
Databricks, a AI data company, raised $ 10 billion from investors in December. Part of the money went to businesses, but Databricks said that some of them would also be used to let today’s and former employees redeem and pay their taxes.
Also, in December, Veeam, a data company, said it raised $ 2 billion in funding that went to existing investors. This year, Plaid hired Goldman Sachs to raise up to $ 400 million in an offer that would allow shareholders to redeem, according to a person familiar with the issue.
Mr Solomon said he has often told the founders of the start that there are three reasons to become public and two of them-concentrating money and letting shareholders sell their stock-they have been resolved by private markets.
It advises the founders to become public “with great care”, as this will change the way they run their businesses. “It’s not fun to be a public company,” he said.
Companies who want to go public are waiting. Many postpone their plans in early 2022, when interest rates rose and the war in Ukraine hit markets.
JustWorks, a payroll and benefits software provider, is a day away from Pitching of Pitching Pitching for a list of January 2022, when he decided to delay. Mike Seckler, the leader at the time, said it was tempting to promote and record the shares anyway, since so many projects had been prepared for public bids.
But, as he wore in 2022, market instability and poor performance of the companies who were listed proved that JustWorks made the right call, he said. JustWorks didn’t need the capital – it had $ 125 million in the bank – and was profitable.
“He began to feel like forced something, unlike the exploitation of a moment of great enthusiasm for our business,” said Mr Seckler, who became chief executive at the end of 2022.
JustWorks eventually broke the entry plans and does not plan to try again soon. “Our time will come,” Mr Seckler said.
Navan, a traveling software manufacturer of travel management and expenses, was confidently deposited to be made public in 2022, but later pulled his plans, a person familiar with the subject. The start recently went to a “non-demand” roadshow to meet investors and lay the groundwork for a list in the second half of the year, the person said.
Stubhub, the ticket company, which has filed it to be made public in 2022, is also aiming to record its shares at some point this year, a person who is familiar with the issue said.
With the flying market, bankers have pushed technology companies, which are often unprofitable, to find a way to make money, people who are familiar with conversations said. Bankers want newly established companies to generate annual revenue of at least $ 200 million to attract public investors. If a company is smaller or losing money, investors want to see a high increase in revenue, people said.
“The bar went up for the kind of companies that can be public,” said Amy Butte, chief financial director of Navan.
Sanjay Dhawan, chief executive of Symphonyai, a software company, said his bankers have told him to hit $ 200 million in $ 300 million in revenue before the publication. The company exceeded $ 400 million last year and destroyed a profit, he said.
Mr Dhawan added that he was waiting for clarity from the elections before he was making IPO plans.
“Now everyone knows how economic policies will look like,” he said. “Everyone feels a little relieved to start planning.” Deepseek volatility was just a short -term reaction, he added.
At least one technology company has recently arrived in public markets. On Thursday, Sailpoint Technologies, a cyberspace company backed by the private share of Thoma Bravo, raised $ 1.38 billion in a public bid that has been assigned to about $ 12 billion. However, its stock decreased by 4 % below the IPO price of $ 23 per share on the first day of transactions.
In order for the public market offer to really go, “it will take some brave companies to come out,” said Equityzen’s Haslett.
