Market & IPO Updates

September should have been a busy month for US IPOs. Instead, only four operating companies debuted (excluding SPACs), several pulled their offerings, and the two largest AI labs both reportedly pushed their timelines back. The Nasdaq hit record highs over the same period, so this isn't a market-wide sell-off. It's a public market being selective about price, disclosure and timing.

SpaceX prices its IPO Thursday, with first trades Friday on the Nasdaq under ticker SPCX, at a fixed $135 per share. The base raise is $75 billion, rising toward $86 billion if underwriters exercise the over-allotment, the largest offering in history by a wide margin. In the same stretch, Anthropic and OpenAI each confidentially filed draft S-1 paperwork with the SEC. Anthropic filed first, on the heels of a funding round valuing the company near $965 billion. OpenAI followed

On May 11, 2026 SpaceX filed its initial Form S-1, and on June 3 the company filed an amended S-1/A that, unusually, set an exact offering price rather than a range: 555,555,555 Class A shares at $135.00, raising approximately $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion fully diluted valuation. Shares are expected to begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX later this month, per press reports. The size is unprecedented — the largest IPO in U.S. history, twice the prior record.

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.

Nvidia’s recent $20 billion acqui-hire of Groq is more than a single high-profile transaction — it’s a clear signal that consolidation in AI hardware is accelerating.