MARK CALVEY January 5, 2026
Bay Area initial public offerings came roaring back in 2025, setting up 2026 to be even bigger. But the IPO market faces a “significant speed bump,” according to PwC: the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Last fall’s government shutdown created a sizable backlog of more than 900 registration statements the SEC needs to clear, according to the accounting firm’s recent IPO outlook report. If the SEC can overcome the mountain of work ahead of it, the momentum from 2025 could be buttressed by anticipated rate cuts and moderating inflation to help fuel IPOs as stock market indexes remain near record levels, PwC reported.
“2026 has the potential to be the best issuance window in years,” according to PwC, which adds that its forecast depends on the broader economy and trade policy continuing to stabilize.
A strong stock market is another necessary ingredient, even as some express concern about the AI boom losing steam.
“U.S. public markets are set for another big year in 2026,” PwC said. “After three years of intermittent issuance windows, hundreds of late-stage private companies — including more than 800 unicorns — enter 2026 with stronger balance sheets, improved operating discipline and clearer paths to profitability.”
More Bay Area companies going public means big paydays not only for startup founders, employees and investors, but for the region’s broader economy as the money is spent on homes, cars and luxuries. Already, Wine Country and other popular Bay Area retreats are seeing increased home buying as tech stocks have done well amid the AI boom.
“The age range of (buyers) has definitely gone down — we are seeing couples as young as their early 30s getting second homes,” Lindsey Harn, an agent with Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno in San Luis Obispo, recently told the Business Times. “Many of these younger buyers are in the tech industry with stock and many are paying all cash.”
There could be more second-home buyers jumping into the market if IPO expectations of those on Wall Street come to fruition this year. Bank of America’s JD Moriarty, vice chair of global technology investment banking, told the Business Times shortly after the government shutdown ended Nov. 12, that the bank was advising clients to wait till the new year to go public even as some chose not to wait.
Among those going public in mid-December was San Francisco-based Andersen Group Inc. and Palo Alto-based Wealthfront Corp. And perhaps in a sign of things to come, San Francisco-based AI fleet-management company Motive Technologies Inc. filed to go public just two days before Christmas.
Those working behind the scenes to prepare companies to go public in 2026 were toiling away at a “fever pitch” in December, Bloomberg News reported.
There are more than a dozen prominent companies that could decide that 2026 is the year to go public, including Databricks, OpenAI and Anthropic.
IPOs in 2026 are likely to be concentrated in technology, healthcare and industrial products, according to PwC.
But post-IPO performance for the class of ‘25 could shine a spotlight on pricing. Ticket marketplace StubHub Holdings Inc. and Palo Alto-based business-travel manager Navan Inc. are among those turning in disappointing post-IPO performances on Wall Street last year. Even San Francisco-based Figma Inc. saw its shares recently change hands at the $37 level, still above its July IPO price of $33, but well below the $142.92 the stock reached the day after it went public.
Whether that leads to more discerning investors putting money to work in the IPO market remains to be seen.
“There have been some massive home runs but also some IPOs that haven’t performed as well as expected,” Keith Canton, JPMorgan & Co.’s co-head of equity capital markets for the Americas, told Bloomberg News in December. “While that won’t impact overall investor demand to participate in IPOs, it may start to show up in increased investor discipline around valuations.”
Article originally published by San Francisco Business Times.