The IPO Market Just Woke Up — 5 Companies to Watch

Ajouté : 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]For 2 years, the IPO market was basically dead. After the 2021 euphoria, when every SPAC and unprofitable tech company went public, that window slammed shut. Interest rates went up, valuations cratered, and companies just stayed private. Now, the window's opening again. And the companies waiting on the other side are some of the most valuable private businesses in history. We're talking a combined pipeline of over $3 trillion in potential market cap.

[00:00:24]SpaceX, OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe, Discord, names you use every day that you can't own stock in, yet. And today I'm breaking down the five most actionable IPOs coming in 2026. Not just what these companies do, but whether I think they might actually be a buy when they go public. So, before we get into the names, you need to understand one critical fact about IPOs. Every major 2025 IPO traded down from its private round valuation. CoreWeave, Klarna, Venture Global, all opened below where private investors bought in. That's important. The companies I'm about to show you are valued at 15 billion, 107 billion, 134 billion in private markets.

[00:01:04]Those valuations were set by venture capital firms who negotiated special protections, ratchets, liquidation preferences, anti-dilution clauses that public investors don't get. So, when these companies IPO, the question isn't, is this a good company? They're all good companies. The question is, is this a good company at the price the public market is being asked to pay? Keep that in mind as we go through all of these.

[00:01:24]Number one, the one I'm most excited about, Databricks. Expected to IPO in Q3 of 2026 at a is the data and AI infrastructure platform that enterprises use to store, organize, and analyze massive data sets and train AI models. Their lakehouse platform combines the best parts of data warehouses and data lakes into one unified system. Companies like Samsung, Comcast, Shell, and even Rivian use it to manage their entire data stack. And here's why the numbers are compelling.

[00:01:54]Their revenue run rate crossed 5.4 billion in late 2025, growing 65% year-over-year. Net revenue retention is above 140%, meaning existing customers are spending 40% more each year. They raised 10 billion at a 62 bill valuation in January of 2025, another 4 billion in December at the 134 billion dollar market cap. The bull case, Databricks is the infrastructure layer for enterprise AI. Every company needs to organize its data before it can deploy AI. Databricks is becoming the default platform for that, and the switching costs are massive. Once you build your data architecture on Databricks, you don't leave. The bear case, at 134 billion on 5.4 billion revenue, it's about 25x revenue. It's expensive, even for a company that's growing 65%, and Databricks competes directly with Snowflake, AWS, Google BigQuery, and Microsoft Fabric. The moat is real, but not insurmountable. My take, Databricks is probably the highest quality company in the entire IPO pipeline. If it IPOs at 25x revenue, I would watch for a pullback. If it opens at 18 to 20x on a broader market sell-off, I'm way more interested. Company number two, and for the crypto natives, you might even be familiar with it, Stripe, the most anticipated fintech IPO of the decade, valued at approximately 107 to 120 billion in secondary markets. Stripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars in payments annually for millions of businesses. If you've ever bought something online, good chance Stripe processed the transaction. Their APIs power e-commerce for companies from two-person startups to Amazon, Google, and even Salesforce. But Stripe isn't just a payments company anymore. They've expanded into lending, fraud detection, tax calculation, billing, issuing, and financial infrastructure. They've recently become a leader in what they call agentic commerce, AI to AI payments, where automated systems transact with each other through Stripe's infrastructure. Their co-founder John Collison said in January of 2026 that they're in no rush to go public. They've been providing employee liquidity through tender offers, which is typically a sign a A is IPO ready, but trying to time the window. Now, the bull case. Stripe is the plumbing for internet commerce. The network effects are enormous. Every developer who integrates Stripe makes the platform more valuable. And the expansion into financial services creates multiple revenue streams beyond just transaction fees. Now, the bear case. Payments is intensely competitive. PayPal, Adyen, Block, and the card networks are all fighting for market share. And at 107 billion, Stripe would be one of the most expensive fintech IPOs ever. The margin pressure in payments is real. But my take, Stripe is a generational company.

[00:04:24]But I'm not buying at any price. I need to see their S-1 numbers before I commit any sort of thesis on it. Now, company number three, Discord. Valued at just 15 to 30 billion, they filed confidentially for a US IPO with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as underwriters, aiming for Q2 to Q3 of 2026. They have 200 million monthly active users, and it's become the default communication platform for gaming communities, creator groups, DAOs, and increasingly, work teams.

[00:04:51]Think of it as a Slack meets Reddit, but with real-time voice, video, and community tools. The challenge with Discord has always been monetization.

[00:04:58]The platform has incredible engagement and user loyalty, but turning that into revenue's been slow. Revenue comes primarily from their Nitro subscriptions, which is a premium feature at about $10 a month, and server monetization tools. The bull case, Discord is a foundational communication layer for the internet. It has network effects, high engagement, and a moat built on community. If they crack monetization through advertising, marketplace features, or even enterprise products, the revenue growth could accelerate dramatically. But as always, there is a bear case. Discord's revenue per user is extremely low compared to social platforms like Meta. The community-first culture resists aggressive monetization, and if you push too hard, the users will leave. At a 15 to 30 billion-dollar valuation, the market is pricing in monetization success that hasn't fully materialized yet. And my take is that Discord is a it's a maybe. I love the product. I use it daily. But loving a product and loving your stock are very different things, and I need to fully understand their growth trajectory, revenue targets, and everything from forward guidance before I make a call. Number four, Shein. Valued at 30 to 50 billion, planning a Hong Kong IPO after US and London listings fell through. Shein is an ultra-fast fashion e-commerce platform that uses AI-driven demand forecasting to go from trend identification to a finished product in just days. They nearly doubled their net income in 2025, and their pricing model lets them compete directly with Amazon and Temu on cost of goods. The bull case for Shein is that it has massive scale, strong pricing power, and a proven ability to control costs. If the Hong Kong listing does go through, its exposure to one of the fastest-growing e-commerce brands on the planet is what you get with the IPO. The bear case, though, is regulatory scrutiny is very intense. Their labor practices, ESG concerns, data handling, and the de minimis tax loophole that allows Shein to ship directly to US consumer without tariffs are all under threat. France has already taken regulatory action. The political headwinds are very real, and my take on this is I'm going to watch Shein, but probably not be a buyer just yet. All of these regulatory risks make it too unpredictable for my risk tolerance. One policy change can reshape their entire business model. Now, getting into some of the heavy hitters.

[00:07:03]Number five, OpenAI, the big one. Valued between 730 billion and a trillion dollars, depending on who you ask. Their IPO filing is potentially late 2026 or a listing in 2027. They created ChatGPT, launched the generative AI revolution, and it's now the most recognized AI brand in the world. Revenue is reportedly growing rapidly through enterprise API subs, ChatGPT Plus, and even partnerships. And Nvidia recently agreed to invest up to 100 billion in OpenAI over the coming years. SoftBank led a $40 billion round that valued the company at 300 billion post-money.

[00:07:36]Through secondary market activity suggests much, much higher. The bull case, OpenAI is the defining technology company of 2020s. If AI is as transformative as the internet, OpenAI is well-positioned to be one of the most valuable companies in history. The enterprise adoption curve is steep, but it's accelerating. The bear case. The losses, they're absurd. OpenAI projected 17 billion in operating losses for 2025.

[00:08:00]The compute costs are enormous and continue to grow, and competition from companies like Anthropic, Google, and Meta's open-source models, along with dozens of startups, is only intensifying. governance is messy. The board drama, the restructuring from nonprofit to for-profit, the recent lawsuit with Elon and Sam Altman, departures of key researchers. At 730 billion or more, you're paying for a future where OpenAI dominates AI the way that Google dominated search. And it might happen, but paying 2030 prices in 2026 is the kind of trade that's going to burn retail investors. I do want to own OpenAI eventually. And my take, though, is not at a trillion-dollar valuation before they're even profitable. You got to wait, read the numbers, and see what happens for the post-IPO lockup sell-off situation to fully understand is this the right one to buy into. So, five IPOs. Databricks being my top pick if the valuation comes in reasonable. Stripe is a generational company I want to own at the right price. Discord's a maybe. Shein, probably too risky. And OpenAI's a wait and see. The most important thing that I can tell you about IPOs is this. The first day is never the best price. In almost every major IPO, you can buy cheaper 3 to 6 months after listing.

[00:09:07]Once the lockup expires and insiders start selling. Patience is the edge retail investors have over institutions.

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