Why the biggest venture-backed IPO ever could happen in 2026

Yahoo Finance Video and Josh Lipton

Sat, February 14, 2026 at 10:00 PM GMT+9

SpaceX (SPAX.PVT), OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), and Stripe (STRI.PVT) are just some of the companies investors are hoping will go public soon. Crunchbase News senior data editor Gené Teare expects that “the biggest venture-backed IPO of all time” could happen in 2026. Find out why in the video above.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend.

Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

you know, when you’re thinking through the 2026 IPO market, do you think, you know, at the end of the day, Jean, it’s going to be, it’s going to be even stronger than 2025 and what what are the puts and takes? What are the the variables that depends on?

00:15 Genevieve

Yeah. I do think it is going to be stronger in 2026 and 2025. You know, everyone we we expect that the biggest IPO, venture backed IPO of all time will happen in 2026. The last one was Facebook, is the largest of all time at 104 billion in 2012, so that’s more than a decade ago. But I think when you’re looking at, you know, we have a unicorn board with 1,600 companies valued above a billion. The board went up in the last year in more than 2 trillion. You have SpaceX now valued at 800 billion, you have Open AI second at 500 billion. So massive, massive valuation increases that we’ve seen on the private side. and I think so many of those companies have been reading over the last three years have been much slower. 2025 we did see IPOs pick up a little bit and I think it was really gearing up to 2026. So even though the markets have been quite unstable, there is this concern around how SAS is being transformed by AI. Nonetheless, there are a lot of companies who have significant revenue, and some are seeing some reacceleration with this AI story as SpaceX would be one of those. And so I think we are going to have a probably more towards the latter half of 20 26, we are going to see a pickup

01:38 Genevieve

in the IPO markets this year despite all the turbulence we saw in the last week.

01:42 Speaker A

If you saw a mega IPO like that, Gene, let’s Gene Geneve this year. Let’s say Elon Musk really did bring SpaceX public. What would that mean for the broader IPO market? Or does it mean anything, Jane? Or or is, you know, on the other hand, is is SpaceX just sort of it’s a kind of one of one company?

02:02 Genevieve

Yeah, I think SpaceX is a one of one that they could go out in any market. They, you know, they have revenue in the billions, they’re profitable, Starlink is their most profitable product. They’ve now merged and brought X AI on board, which is obviously going to be a growing concern as well in competing with Open AI and Tropic and Gemini. Um so I think SpaceX is one of a kind, but I think what the market is looking for is one of those very high value companies to to go out. um and that will in a sense create some energy and enthusiasm around the market, but I don’t think it changes the overall picture. and we’re seeing this on the private market side where it’s highly competitive. who are the companies that are leading today? their revenue is no longer baked in that they’re going to be the leading companies in five to 10 years. I think there’s lots lots of questions around all those SAS companies. Um and so even though SpaceX can go out and there will be excitement, I think there are a number of others, Data Bricks would be another one. Um I still think the market is going to look at companies very differently. And you know, I looked at the Bessemer Venture Index looking at companies growing in the cloud space and you know, growth rates are not very high across the board. So even there though there is this AI story, a lot of these companies have not necessarily seen this reacceleration and will they or will they be taken over by other private companies? I guess is the question and so that’s I think being factored in.

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