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2023 was projected to be the return of the tech IPO as startups began returning to the stock market after years of pandemic-era volatility.
But while companies including Instacart and Klaviyo filed to go public this year, their lukewarm debuts dashed investors' dreams that 2023 would see the IPO boom they had hoped for.
Business Insider previously reported that some venture capitalists remain skeptical about whether 2024 will bring a stable enough market to springboard the launches of new tech IPOs. However, others in the financial space think the Fed's promised rate cuts and a weak M&A market will create the perfect circumstances for companies that have pushed off their IPOs to go public next year.
"The outlook is merry and bright for the 2024 IPO market," Lise Buyer, founder of the IPO consultancy Class V Group, told Barron's.
Buyer told the outlet that some venture-backed companies, strapped for cash, may view an IPO as "an increasingly appealing option" and that "renewed, albeit meaningfully slower growth, coupled with last year's expense rationalization/control leaves many with a genuine path to believable profitability."
Here are five much-anticipated IPOs that could finally be ready to debut next year:
The social messaging platform has been the subject of IPO rumors since the end of 2021 when the company reportedly turned down a $10 billion buyout offer from Microsoft. Discord, widely expected to launch its IPO this year, was valued at $15 billion in a 2021 funding round — though it remains unclear if the company would hit that valuation in a potential 2024 IPO, given market fluctuations.
Reddit began making preparations to go public early last year. Business Insider previously reported the social media company hoped to debut its IPO at a $15 billion valuation. Still, market volatility caused the company to push back the public launch. According to Bloomberg, the company is now eyeing a first-quarter IPO in 2024 and courting potential investors like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
According to Reuters, Chime, the digital, fee-free banking company valued at $25 billion in a 2021 funding round, hired Goldman Sachs in 2022 to advise on an IPO. The digital bank denied it had immediate plans for a public debut but may have been simply waiting out the frozen market.
In January of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that fintech startup Stripe publicly announced a one-year timetable to decide whether to go public — and we're coming up on the deadline. The company, valued in 2021 at $95 billion, raised $6.5 billion in March of this year with a lower, though not insignificant, valuation of $50 billion.
Klarna is "pretty much ready" for an IPO, CNBC reported CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said last month after recording the company's first profitable quarter since 2019. Though the buy-now, pay-later firm's valuation plummeted from $45.6 billion to $6.7 billion in 2022, Business Insider reported Siemiatkowski said he was waiting for a "sane market" before launching a public offering.
