FOUND: Hot upcoming ipos to watch - What They Never Told You

"If the Iran conflict resolves in the near term with oil flow resuming to prior levels and earnings continue to deliver, conditions are in place for a faster pace in 2026," says Kaush Amin, head of private market investing at U.S. Bank. "What will matter most is pricing discipline and deal quality."

Amin expects "several large listings this year," including SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI, each of which is "capex heavy and will require access to public markets sooner rather than later given the size of their spending budgets."

More companies appear to be testing the waters, too, making now the best time to explore the most anticipated upcoming IPOs.

For those looking to gain exposure to these new stocks, it's imperative to have an understanding of what an IPO is before jumping in.

"It's important to read the offering materials filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on the SEC website," says Amin. "Investors should review risk factors, dilution, governance, and how proceeds will be used." They should also be aware of "lock‑ups and potential 'market overhang' as more shares become eligible for sale later," he adds.

Having covered the most promising upcoming IPOs for Kiplinger for several years, I've crafted this latest list to spotlight larger, well-established companies that are sure to gain the attention of both Wall Street and Main Street.

Data is as of May 13. Where possible, we have provided reported expectations for timelines and/or valuations for the upcoming IPOs.

Cryptocurrency was one of the hottest categories for IPOs in 2025. Notable offerings included Circle Internet Group (CRCL), which has quadrupled since it began trading last June, and Bullish Global (BLSH), which soared in its August market debut but has pared this gain to 13%.

Other crypto companies are lining up to launch their own IPO. Among them is Grayscale Investments.

Grayscale, a top digital asset manager founded in 2013, filed its IPO paperwork with the SEC in mid-November, though there's no set timeline for its offering. Grayscale reported $35 billion in assets under management in its filing, and that figure will likely rise as industry demand increases.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is its flagship fund. It also offers vehicles to trade ethereum-focused themes, bitcoin miners and early crypto adopters, as well as income-focused ETFs that use option strategies.

The Trump administration has made improving the regulatory environment for the crypto industry a top priority. And more and more people are using and investing in digital assets – helped by a proliferation of crypto-focused ETFs.

Potential risk factors remain substantial – this is still an emerging technology, and crypto remains a highly volatile asset class.

And the bitcoin ETF corner of the market is highly competitive, with players such as BlackRock (BLK) and Fidelity Investments. This is likely to mean pressure on investment fees.

Many companies are still struggling to get their data house in order. It's all over the place. Different teams using different systems, formats that don't match, files with missing information, or duplicated rows that throw everything off.

Fixing this isn't just tedious; it's a serious obstacle for anyone trying to use artificial intelligence (AI) effectively.

That's the pain point Databricks was built around.

Its story begins in 2009 at UC Berkeley's AMPLab. Matei Zaharia, then a Ph.D. student, developed Apache Spark, a faster, more flexible way to process big data, especially compared to older tools like MapReduce.

Spark could handle large jobs in memory, making things such as streaming and machine learning more efficient.

A few years later, Zaharia joined up with some fellow researchers, including Ali Ghodsi and Ion Stoica. In 2013, they launched Databricks to bring Spark into the hands of enterprises. The company's platform made it easier to analyze large-scale data in the cloud.

One big innovation: Databricks introduced what it calls a "lakehouse" architecture. It's a hybrid model that merges the strengths of data lakes and warehouses, so users can manage raw and structured data in the same place, without jumping between tools.

Today, Databricks is powering data and AI efforts at over 10,000 organizations, including AT&T (T), United Parcel Service (UPS) and Block (XYZ).

The company's growth hasn't gone unnoticed. In February, the company said it raised $5 billion in its latest round of funding, giving it a $134 billion valuation.

So, why is Databricks eyeing an IPO?

There are a couple of good reasons. Going public adds transparency, which tends to matter for big enterprise customers. But perhaps more important is having a publicly traded stock that makes acquisitions easier. And that's something Databricks is already doing at a steady clip. Recent deals include generative AI customization platform MosaicML and Neon, a serverless database platform.

While Databricks has not yet filed paperwork for its IPO, Ghodsi told CNBC that the company will go public "when the time is right."

SpaceX confidentially filed its IPO paperwork with the SEC in early April, with Elon Musk's space exploration and satellite company expected to go to market in June with a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion. This would easily make it the biggest IPO ever.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX is the world's largest private space company. A key to its success has been a relentless focus on innovation. The company's breakthroughs include reusable orbital rockets, which have greatly reduced the costs of space flights; vertical rocket landings; and onboard autonomous systems.

The business has been lucrative. Morningstar, citing data from PitchBook, estimates it had annual revenue of $15.8 billion in 2025. Projections are for SpaceX's top line to grow to $19.9 billion in 2026 and reach $149.4 billion by 2040.

The main sources of revenue come from launch services, flying commercial satellites and providing government payloads. Then there is Starlink, which is a massive satellite broadband service.

Musk seems to have boundless ambitions for SpaceX. He wants to deploy space-based data centers, build a moonbase, and have missions to Mars.

Such bold initiatives will not be cheap, which is likely why Musk is considering SpaceX IPO.

Avalara launched an IPO in the summer of 2018, raising $180 million. Shares shot up 87% on the first day of trading. Four years later, management announced an $8.4 billion going-private transaction led by private equity giant Vista Equity Partners.

Founded in 2004, Avalara develops software to help customers manage advanced tax and compliance requirements. It serves more than 41,000 customers and 1,400-plus partner integrations. In all, the platform has processed and filed more than six million tax returns.

According to Fitch, fundamentals are solid: "Avalara is positioned for strong growth, supported by favorable industry tailwinds."

As Fitch notes, Avalara serves the U.S. tax compliance software market and its estimated total addressable value of approximately $15 billion.

Its focus area is the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment, which represents more than half of the total market and is less penetrated compared to bigger enterprises.

So, what’s next? Of course, Avalara is preparing to go public again. In July 2025, management revealed it had submitted a confidential Form S-1 filing with the SEC.

In 2021, siblings Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei cofounded Anthropic. Before this, the pair were executives at OpenAI, where they disagreed with the strategic focus and wanted to build a platform that would emphasize safety and transparency.

That strategy proved to be a profitable one. Today, Anthropic is the second-biggest private AI company, behind OpenAI. The company develops some of the world's most sophisticated AI models and also operates the Claude chatbot.

In November, Microsoft (MSFT) announced a strategic partnership with Anthropic, which included a $5 billion investment. Nvidia (NVDA) also agreed to invest up to $10 billion in the AI startup. These investments give Anthropic a $350 billion valuation.

More recently, reports suggest the company could raise between $30 billion and $50 billion in a new round of funding, which, at the high end of that range, would give it a $950 billion valuation.

For 2025, Anthropic brought in $9 billion in revenue. And Amodei said recently that the company's annual revenue run rate for this year had surpassed $30 billion by April 2026.

As for an Anthropic IPO, reports suggest it could happen sometime this year, though the plans appear to be in the preliminary stages.

Melanie Perkins got the idea for Canva when she was a student at the University of Western Australia. While tutoring graphic design, she observed students struggling with tools such as Adobe (ADBE) Photoshop.

Perkins knew there had to be a better way. So she teamed up with Cliff Obrecht to create an online service for designing yearbooks.

Within a few years, their brainchild would grow into Canva, as they created a general-purpose design tool. In the first year, it attracted over 750,000 users. The momentum would not let up, either.

Today, Canva has more than 220 million users, and revenue is estimated to exceed $3 billion.

In 2013 – after more than 100 rejections – Perkins and Obrecht raised their first round of capital. In August, the company held an employee stock sale at a valuation of $42 billion, up from $32 billion a year earlier.

So, does this mean an IPO is not in the cards? Not necessarily. While Obrecht said in a recent podcast interview that market conditions are more appealing now, there's no specific date on the books for an IPO, with some reports suggesting that it won't come until 2027.

IPOs can be a great way to invest in early-stage growth companies, and gains can potentially be massive.

Then again, the risks can be substantial. "Market history is littered with examples of 'hot' IPOs that have gone on to become market duds," said Ed Ciancarelli, senior portfolio manager at Focus Partners.

"Lyft, Inc (LYFT) went public at $72 on March of 2019 after pricing above the expected range of $62 to $68 per share," Ciancarelli notes. "LYFT closed the first day of trading at $78 and has not seen that level since. Such broken IPOs become the victim of an overly exuberant market and unattainable expectations."

An IPO should be considered a higher risk category for your portfolio. For example, it might be best to allocate no more than 5% to 10% in these types of investments.

Before investing in an IPO, you might want to wait until the excitement subsides.

"Be patient and wait for the stock price to have its inevitable dip prior to investing," suggests Jeff McClean, CEO at Solidarity Wealth. "Unless you are one of the lucky few who have access to pre-IPO stock at reasonable valuations, patience is the best course."

Moreover, it's a good idea to read the S-1, a regulatory filing that includes important information about the company that is planning to go public. Make sure to focus on the prospectus summary, risk factors and the letter from the founders.

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