We enter 2025 after a quieter year for IPOs than many had initially anticipated. There were a few bright spots like Astera Labs (up 214%1) and Reddit (up 332%), two companies that played into AI as part of their IPO pitches. Yet global IPO volume declined 14% year-over-year, with many potential IPO candidates waiting for more macroeconomic and political certainty before making their public debut. Through Q3, the US saw only 14 venture-backed IPOs. This leaves over 1,200 Unicorn companies globally, many of which may be planning for an exit in the coming quarters.
Of EquityZen’s 2024 IPO candidates, three companies, Reddit, ServiceTitan and Swiggy, entered the public markets. Another 2024 candidate, Roofstock, merged with Mynd instead of going public. Meanwhile, others quietly prepared. This leaves many companies from our 2024 list as potential IPO candidates for 2025.
A rosier macroeconomic backdrop coupled with more political certainty, is leading many to expect a more robust year for IPOs in 2025. Public markets surged in 2024, allowing investor sentiment to improve. Leaders at both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ predict a bigger year for IPOs in 2025. NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman expects that IPOs will return with momentum next year. Goldman Sachs’ head of technology equity capital markets shared a similar sentiment with expectations that the IPO pipeline will double in 2025. So which companies will help build this momentum? Here are the 12 companies that make up our 2025 IPO outlook.
2025 IPO Contenders
First, let’s start with some high level stats. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the companies in our IPO outlook are, on average, older companies. The average company was founded in 2009. These teenaged companies have grown significantly while private, making their potential IPOs an exciting opportunity for more investors to access this growth*. When you look by industry, hardware and financial services companies make up the greatest portion of the list, followed closely by cybersecurity. Of the 2025 class, the most common headquarters state is California.
While an IPOs will open investment access to the widest range of investors, EquityZen investors were able to invest in many of these companies pre-IPO. Of our IPO Outlook list, EquityZen funds have offered investments in two-thirds. Over 2,400 clients invested an average of $28,000 in these companies on EquityZen’s marketplace over the last 9 years, allowing them to participate in the growth of these companies while still private.
Here are the companies that make up our 2025 IPO Outlook.
- Cerebras Systems
- Industry: Hardware
- What they do: Founded in 2016, Cerebras Systems is a computer systems company that aims to develop computers and chips for artificial intelligence.
- IPO news: The AI supercomputing company filed its S-1 with the SEC in September with plans to go public. Given the few pure-play AI companies that are available in the public markets, this IPO news received lots of buzz.
- Private market stats: Cerebras has raised $963M in funding from notable investors like Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital, Eclipse, Coatue, Benchmark. The company raised a Series F-1 in June which valued the company at approximately $3.0B.
- Chime
- Industry: Financial services
- What they do: Founded in 2013, Chime is an online bank that provides checking and savings accounts to consumers. The company provides its banking services for free, claiming there are no monthly fees, open deposit requirements, minimum balances, or international transaction fees. Chime additionally markets early direct deposits and automatic savings features.
- IPO News: The company confidentially filed to IPO in December of 2024. Bloomberg reported in September that the company has tapped Morgan Stanley to lead its upcoming IPO.
- Private market stats: The company last raised funding in 2021 at a $28.7B valuation. Notable investors include DST Global, Tiger Global Management, Forerunner Ventures, Coatue Management, and Menlo Ventures. In May, Forbes reported Chime reached $1.5 billion in annualized revenue with seven million customers.
- Coreweave
- Industry: Hardware
- What they do: Founded in 2017, CoreWeave is a cloud computing provider that offers computing resources for complex workloads. They lease cloud based GPU, CPU, RAM, and storage computing power to customers, from 14 data centers.
- IPO News: Reuters reported that the company is eyeing an IPO in the 2nd half of 2025.
- Private market stats: CoreWeave has raised $1.6B from notable investors including Coatue, Fidelity and Blackstone Group. Their Series C round of funding in May of 2024 valued the company at approximately $21.1B.
Interested in browsing the private company investment opportunities available on EquityZen's marketplace?
- eToro
- Industry: Financial services
- What they do: Founded in 2007, eToro is a social trading investment network that enables users to watch the financial trading activities of other users, copy them, and make their own trades. The company’s product, OpenBook and WebTrader, allows traders to learn from each other, share live trading information, and capitalize on their collective power.
- IPO News: Bloomberg reported this month that the company is working with Goldman Sachs to prepare for a U.S. IPO in the back half of 2025. The company could garner a valuation greater than $3.5 billion. This is after a failed SPAC merger in 2022 at a $10.4 billion valuation.
- Private market stats: Based on their Series F round of financing in February of 2023, eToro has a post-money valuation of approximately $4B. The company has raised $214 million from investors including Spark Capital, Korea Investment Partners, SBI Group, CommerzVentures GmbH and World Wide Invest.
- Klarna
- Industry: Financial services
- What they do: Founded in 2005, Klarna is the developer of an e-commerce payments platform that offers flexible payment options for consumers and payment and marketing solutions for businesses. Its core offering is its "Pay in 4" installments and consumer financing for larger purchases. The company has partnerships with thousands of brands, allowing customers to compare prices, track deliveries, and manage purchases all within the Klarna app.
- IPO News: The company confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO in November of 2024. Analysts estimate the company could be worth $15 billion in an IPO. The company achieved profitability in the first half of 2024.
- Private market stats: The company has an estimated valuation of $6.7 billion based on their 2022 round of financing. Notable investors include Institutional Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, TCV, and Atomico.
- MNTN
- Industry: Software as a service
- What they do: Founded in 2009, builds advertising software for brands to drive measurable conversions, revenue, site visits and more through the power of television.
- IPO News: Fast Company reports that the company is working with Morgan Stanely on a 2025 IPO.
- Private market stats: Based on their 2022 Series D, MNTN has a post-money valuation of approximately $2.4B. Notable investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, BlackRock, Staley Capital, Baroda Ventures, and Daher Capital.
- Neo4J
- Industry: Data
- What they do: Founded in 2007, Neo4j is an open-source, NoSQL, native graph database. Neo4j's mission is to help organizations make sense of their data by revealing how people, processes, and digital systems are interrelated. Neo4j's core offering, AuraDB, aims to assist in the creation of applications that solve connected data challenges such as analytics and artificial intelligence, fraud detection, real-time recommendations, and knowledge graphs.
- IPO News: Bloomberg reports that the company is preparing for a 2025 IPO. CEO Emil Eifrem further explained in an interview, “I’m focused on making sure that we’re IPO-able, that we have the ability to go public when the time is right.” The company has achieved $200M in annual recurring revenue and expects to become cash flow positive in the “coming quarters”.
- Private market stats: Neo4J last raised a Series F in 2021 that valued the company at $2.4 billion. The company has raised $368M in funding from notable investors including Eurazeo, Eight Roads Ventures, Greenbridge Partners, One Peak Partners, and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.
- Netskope
- Industry: Cybersecurity
- What they do: Founded in 2012, Netskope is a cloud security provider that aims to help clients stay ahead of cloud, data, and network security challenges. Netskope’s cloud-scale security platform provides context-aware governance of all cloud usage in the enterprise in real-time, whether accessed from the corporate network, remote, or from a mobile device.
- IPO News: The Wall Street Journal reported the company’s plans for a 2025 IPO. Netskope’s CEO Sanjay Beri explained, “We’re watching public markets and investors’ receptivity to quality IPOs, and if all those remain positive, then the second half of next year is our plan”.
- Private market stats: Based on their Series H round of financing from July of 2021, Netskope has a post-money valuation of approximately $9.4B. The company has raised $1.1 billion from investors including Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Iconiq Capital, and Social Capital.
- Snyk
- Industry: Cybersecurity
- What they do: Founded in 2015, Snyk’s developer security platform aims to automatically integrate with a developer’s workflow to help security teams to collaborate with their development teams. Snyk is used by over 1,200 customers worldwide, including enterprises such as Asurion, Google, Intuit, MongoDB, New Relic, Revolut, and Salesforce.
- IPO News: The company was reportedly working on its IPO prospectus in 2024.
- Private market stats: The company was last valued at $7.4B in December of 2022. The company has raised $1.2B in funding from notable investors including Tiger Global Management, Canaan Partners. BlackRock, Salesforce Ventures, and Amity Ventures.
- Stubhub
- Industry: Ecommerce
- What they do: Founded in 2000, Stubhub operates a ticketing exchange for sports, concerts, theater and other live events.
- IPO News: CNBC esports that the company was eyeing a 2024 IPO at a valuation of at least $16.5 billion, but decided to postpone efforts until there was more market certainty. Stubhub has been working with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs on IPO plans.
- Private market stats: StubHub was acquired by eBay for $310 million in 2007, only to be reacquired by co-founder Eric Baker in 2020 for $4 billion through his new company Viagogo. The company raised its last round of funding in 2021.
Interested in browsing the private company investment opportunities available on EquityZen's marketplace?
- Switch
- Industry: Hardware
- What they do: Founded in 2000, Switch designs, constructs and operates data centers.
- IPO News: Reuters reported that the company is taking preliminary steps, including talking to investment bankers, to prepare for an IPO.
- Private market stats: Switch was taken private by DigitalBridge and IFM Investors for $11 billion in 2022. Australian pension fund Aware Super became a key investor in 2023.
- Turo
- Industry: Transportation
- What they do: Founded in 2008, Turo is a marketplace for peer-to-peer carsharing. Turo allows people to book a car from a community of trusted hosts across the US, Canada, France and the UK. Turo's mission is to allow guests to find a perfect car for any occasion and for hosts to build an accessible, flexible, and scalable car-sharing business from the ground up.
- IPO News: The company filed its IPO prospectus, which includes some key details about the business. In the nine months ended September 30, 2024, Turo generated net revenue of $722.0 million, according to Turo's updated S-1 Registration Statement. The company has approximately 150,000 active hosts and 3.5 million yearly active guests.
- Private market stats: Based on their Series E-2 round of financing in August of 2024, Turo has a post-money valuation of approximately $1.9B. The company has raised over $540 million from key investors including Canaan Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Webb Investment Network, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and Daimler.
While many investors focus on the IPO market, you don’t have to wait for an IPO to invest in technology companies that are shaping the future. More investors and shareholders are buying and selling stock of private companies in the private markets.
So while we don’t have a crystal ball into what the market will look like in 2025, if this year was any indicator, private market transactions will continue to grow. While thousands of Unicorn companies stay private, EquityZen will remain committed to creating accessible and efficient trading opportunities for all of our clients.
This is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell nor is it a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities. Information provided is not warranted as complete or accurate and may change without notice. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results. Potential investors should not rely on these statements when making investment decisions.
*Not all pre-IPO companies will go public or be acquired, and not all IPOs or acquisitions are or will become successful investments.
Footnotes:
1. As of December 2024
Curious about the latest trends and insights in private markets for 2024? Don’t miss our Private Markets Year in Review 2024 blog post.
