US IPO Weekly Winners & Losers

The message is clear: growth is good.

Insurance marketplace Accelerant (NYSE: ARX) led the week’s IPO winners, up +42% from offer. Investors got the “holy trinity” of growth, profitability, and value, which was enough to paper over some confusing accounting and insider payouts.

The two LBOs landed with a thud. NIQ Global Intelligence (NYSE: NIQ) aka NielsenIQ fell -9.5% on its debut, the worst first day for a billion-dollar IPO in two years. Textbook publisher McGraw Hill (NYSE: MH) priced down and mostly traded flat. The two have established brands, but mid-single-digit growth, high leverage, and the lack of a clear valuation discount is not a recipe for success.

Figma (NYSE: FIG) leads the week ahead. It could easily be a hot deal, and one of 2025’s headline IPOs. The design software developer is raising nearly $1 billion at a market cap of $16 billion, a discount to Adobe’s attempted $20+ billion buyout in 2022. By market cap, Figma is the largest enterprise software listing since 2021, and the most richly valued by trailing sales, which may be justified given the 40%+ historical growth and ~20% EBITDA margin. Figma has shown it can compete against juggernaut Adobe, but the big question going forward is how well it can contend with the dozens of new AI-powered design tools.

I’ll note Figma’s IPO proceeds will mostly go to insiders. It’s the new reality: Large VC-backed tech IPOs are often more about liquidity than a capital raise.

Ambiq Micro (NYSE: AMBQ) may fly under the radar next week, but it’s interesting to see a small cap tech IPO with less than $100 million in sales. Its low-power chips are used in AI-enabled devices made by Google and Garmin. It’s a giant market opportunity, though Ambiq has run into some challenges, including a hurried pivot out of China.

The summer IPO market is winding down, but we still expect several names to join the calendar over the next few weeks, assuming the US tariff deadline on August 1 doesn’t scare them off.

Three new confidential filers this week – Avalara, Universal Music Group, and BitGo – which supports our prediction of an active fall. That’s on top of last week’s confidential filings from Via Transportation and Grayscale Investments. Avalara was one of the names we highlighted in our February piece on possible “re-IPOs.”

The Renaissance IPO Index delivered a solid +2.5% gain for the week, beating the S&P 500’s +1.5% return. Both have more than fully recovered from the tariff sell-off, with the IPO Index up +6.3% this year, vs. the S&P 500 up +8.6%. Data center chip maker Astera Labs led the IPO Index’s winners this week, up +19.7% as investors bet that AI spend would lead to a blow-out earnings report (Aug. 5). Natural gas exporter Venture Global was the week’s loser again, off -8.4% amid an analyst downgrade.