US IPO Weekly Winners & Losers

Talk about a shot in the arm.

As predicted, this was a very big week for filings, with three new IPOs lined up to get possible $10+ billion valuations.

Chip company Arm (Nasdaq: ARM) is up first, on track to launch its roadshow right after Labor Day and list the following week. It should be the biggest US IPO in 2 years. Right now any deal that raises $100 million is notable, but we estimate Arm will raise $6+ billion. In the past 20 years, only 3 tech IPOs have raised $5 billion or more (1 free month of IPO Pro if you can name them).

On the one hand, Arm is a huge, one-of-a-kind company that was public for 18 years (1998-2016), so it’s hard to draw parallels between it and the rest of the pipeline. On the other hand, Arm is still a key bellwether as the first major tech deal this year. Its valuation especially will tell us how much weight investors are willing to put on future growth plans. And more importantly, when investors make money on one IPO, they often indicate on the next one.

Grocery delivery platform Instacart (Nasdaq: CART) and marketing automation software Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO) are set to list mid-September. Both VC-backed tech unicorns grew at least 30% in the first half and turned profitable, which is more or less the playbook for all private tech unicorns right now. That and a willingness to accept a possible IPO down-round.

In addition to the week’s 3 big filers, Vietnamese gaming platform VNG (Nasdaq: VNG), cancer biotech RayzeBio (Nasdaq: RYZB), and brain disease biotech Neumora Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NMRA) filed publicly for $100+ million IPOs. Meanwhile, hospital billing software provider Waystar filed confidentially ahead of a possible Q4 IPO.

After 3 down weeks, the IPO market bounced +0.9% vs. +0.8% for the S&P 500, as markets interpreted the Fed Chair's remarks to mean a pause in rate hikes in September. With interest rates at a 22-year high, IPO investors are anxious for the the eventual rate-cut rally, whenever it arrives. The week’s IPO winner was buy-now-pay-later firm Affirm, up +22.7% after an earnings beat, while Petco was the loser, off -20.9% after cutting guidance.