The Mega-IPOs That Could Make Waves Through the US Stock Market

The 2026 IPO market was supposed to be tech’s comeback story. Instead, three companies might swallow the entire pie. SpaceX (valued at roughly $1.25 trillion), OpenAI ($840 billion), and Anthropic ($330 billion) are reportedly eyeing public listings this year. If they follow through, each would shatter the record for the largest US venture-capital-backed tech IPO in history. Together they could raise more than $100 billion in proceeds and generate a total exit value higher than all US VC-backed IPOs since 2000.

In the private markets, these IPOs would be a triumph for venture capital. It would also create challenges for other companies looking to go public, keeping distributions for the year concentrated in a relatively small subset of investors. PitchBook’s new analyst note breaks down different scenarios for the market to consider.

The gravitational pull of these mega listings will undoubtedly impact the growing herd of VC-backed unicorns hoping for their own liquidity moment. Underwriters will be stretched. US stock market capital will also be absorbed. And if any of these giants stumble post-listing—as Alibaba Group Holding BABA, Meta Platforms META, and Uber Technologies UBER all did in their early months as publicly traded companies—the chill could close the broader IPO window until well into 2027.

Already, the VC-backed companies that went public last year haven’t traded well in the current stock market, which is still under pressure due to macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.

The VC market is already four years into a liquidity drought. LPs want distributions, and unicorn valuations are stagnating. If the time for IPOs is now, the slim pipeline of companies in registration doesn’t show much promise, and we’ve had no major IPOs in the first two months of the year. In fact, crypto exchange Kraken is pausing its own listing plans, according to CoinDesk.

Rare are the investors who would rather these companies remain private than unlock returns for the market, but that may not be doable, even within the confines of a normal market. These mega-IPOs of 2026 could be the tide that lifts all boats—or the wave that capsizes the market.