What I’m Watching After A Busy IPO Week

The IPO market is technically open…but it’s already becoming choosy.

A week ago, Blackstone’s president declared that “2026 should be the year of the IPO.” Just days later, one of Blackstone’s own portfolio companies put that assumption to question.

On the surface, it was a busy week for new listings, with seven IPOs and six SPACs pricing. But it was also notable for what didn’t happen.

Blackstone-backed app advertising company Liftoff Mobile postponed its U.S. listing, citing market conditions amid a broader software sell-off that has gripped public markets so far this year. The delay raised an immediate question: was this an isolated case, or an early signal of broader friction beneath the surface?

It quickly began to look like the latter. This week, PE-backed telco Odido also shelved its IPO plans, pointing to muted investor response and heightened volatility in global equity markets. Meanwhile, post-listing performance has been uneven. Several recent issuers have struggled in the aftermarket, reinforcing investor caution around timing and sector exposure.

From Bloomberg

That dynamic played out again this morning, when Brazilian fintech Agibank cut its IPO price range and halved deal size just hours before pricing, despite being oversubscribed. The move followed a nearly 20% post-IPO decline in competitor PicPay, underscoring how quickly public-market feedback is now shaping issuer behavior.

Taken together, these postponements and weak aftermarket performances are being watched closely by market participants as real-time indicators of IPO window health. While each case has its own idiosyncrasies, the pattern suggests a market that is open, but increasingly conditional. Even as the volume of new listings remains encouraging, it is clear the market is pushing back on certain business models and pockets of exposures.

Markets are rewarding real-world economy growth stories

Several deals this week traded well out of the gate, underscoring that investor demand is still there, it’s just selective.

Consumer-facing and physical-world businesses generally fared better. Once Upon a Farm, the fast-growing “better-for-you” food brand, priced successfully. Bob’s Discount Furniture benefited from its positioning as a trade-down winner amid sustained consumer cost pressure. Forgent Power Solutions, with exposure to data center power infrastructure, tapped into one of the clearest capex tailwinds in today’s market.

What these deals shared was not hype, but clarity. Demand drivers were tangible, cost structures understandable, and growth narratives grounded in observable end markets rather than abstract platform optionality.

In other words, public investors aren’t rejecting growth. They’re rejecting growth they can’t confidently underwrite.

Public comps are doing the filtering

That selectivity is being reinforced by public-market signals, which remain the anchor for IPO valuation and investor psychology.

Year-to-date, software performance has been decisively negative. The IGV software ETF is down roughly 15%, while many large-cap bellwethers have reset meaningfully: Salesforce (-27%), Adobe (-24%), and Workday (-28%) among them.

By contrast, capital has rotated toward sectors with more visible cash flows and physical constraints. Consumer staples, industrials, energy, materials, and hardware-linked technology have all outperformed, as markets reward pricing power, scarcity, and tangible demand.

The dispersion is hard to miss. Business models with uncertain long-term economics are being discounted aggressively, while those with clearer near- to mid-term cash flow are being rewarded.

AI has shifted the software risk calculus

This rotation hasn’t happened in a vacuum. It has been accelerated by the pace of progress in autonomous AI systems.

Anthropic’s recent productivity and model releases alongside OpenAI’s latest Codex updates have sharpened investor concerns around the durability of many software moats. This rethink is being driven by improving agent-based workflows capable of coordinating research, analysis, drafting, and synthesis.

For IPO investors, this matters less as a technology story than as a discount-rate story.

The question is no longer whether AI enhances software productivity. It’s whether it compresses margins, weakens differentiation, and accelerates commoditization faster than revenue can scale. Against that backdrop, it’s unsurprising that software-heavy issuers are hesitant to test public markets right now.

Private markets are absorbing the AI uncertainty instead

Private markets, by contrast, continue to warehouse much of this risk.

Recent weeks have seen renewed capital formation across AI infrastructure, with companies like SambaNova and Cerebras raising fresh funding. These are capital-intensive, competitive businesses, but ones where private investors appear comfortable underwriting long-duration technology risk amid clear tailwinds in industry demand. Consolidation in the space has also narrowed the list of independent companies at scale.

More striking is Harvey, the fast-growing legal AI platform reportedly raising $200 million at an $11 billion valuation, up from $8 billion just months ago. With ARR approaching $200 million and growing rapidly, it appears Harvey is being valued at a forward multiple more than double that of comparable public-market software favorites like Snowflake.

Harvey illustrates where AI uncertainty is being priced today. Public markets have imposed harsher discount rates on earnings perceived as vulnerable to disruption, as seen by declines across names like LexisNexis-owner RELX, professional-services firm Wolters Kluwer, Westlaw-owner Thomson Reuters, online legal services provider LegalZoom, and other data-heavy service providers that often charge on a per-seat basis.

At the same time, venture investors remain willing to underwrite growth ahead of full economic clarity. That’s particularly the case when backing potential category leaders that stand to benefit from, rather than be disintermediated by, the shift in AI capabilities. While foundational model providers like OpenAI and Anthropic are rapidly expanding into agents, finance, legal, and other white-collar workflows — increasing pressure on many application-layer incumbents — private capital continues to support select application and distribution platforms positioned as critical enablers in that transition.

It’s an open question whether private markets are correctly underwriting this risk, or are perhaps simply slower to price it. Public investors have already moved to discount business models most exposed to rapid advances in autonomous AI, while private capital continues to back burgeoning application-layer leaders on the assumption that distribution, workflow ownership, and trust will prove defensible.

What this week actually tells us

This does not look like the start of an indiscriminate IPO boom. It looks like a selective reopening, with sharper filters and faster feedback loops.

For companies with durable economics, tangible demand drivers, and limited exposure to AI-driven commoditization, the IPO window remains open.

For those whose models sit directly in the path of rapidly improving autonomous software, even strong sponsors appear willing to wait.

2026 may still be the year of the IPO. But it is already shaping up as the year public markets become far more explicit about which risks they are willing to price, and which they expect to remain absorbed in private markets for now.

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THEMATIC RESEARCH DISCLOSURE: This article is for informational purposes only and represents the thematic analysis of Prepublic Equity Partners ("PEP"). This content is intended to discuss industry trends and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. PEP is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer.

Private company data and "pre-IPO" mentions are based on available market reports and have not been independently verified. Investing in late-stage venture capital involves high risk and illiquidity. PEP or its affiliates may hold financial interests in the companies or sectors discussed, and we reserve the right to trade these positions at any time without notice.