From Plaid to Figma, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year
Last year's investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we approach the halfway point of the year.
The year so far has delivered four venture-backed tech IPOs — Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik — in March and April, which made it seem like this year could spur the momentum investors had hoped for in 2023. But secondary investors and IPO lawyers recently told TechCrunch that despite these four successes, macro conditions like the upcoming presidential election and elevated interest rates means the IPO market won't fully reopen until 2025.
This year is still on track to be better than 2023, and we'll likely see a few more public filings throughout the year. Companies, including Klarna and Shein, have engaged with bankers and seem close to the line, but their IPO timelines are still murky.
For the most part, it may be easier to decipher who isn't going public this year rather than who is. Some CEOs of late-stage startups have directly stated they won't IPO in 2024 while other companies have made financial moves that imply a public listing isn't imminent. Here are some of the venture-backed tech companies we don't expect to hit the public market this year.
Plaid's CEO Zach Perret said the B2B fintech had no plans to IPO in 2024 at an Axios event in March. This echos what TechCrunch's Mary Ann Azevedo reported last October after the company hired a new CFO. Plaid was valued at $13.4 billion in 2021, its most recent valuation.
While design unicorn Figma hasn't directly said it won't IPO this year, its actions point in that direction. In May, the company held a tender offer to allow existing investors and employees to sell their Figma shares, if they please, on the secondary market. This type of liquidity event does not generally come right before the larger liquidity event of an IPO. The tender offer did value the startup at $12.5 billion, which is lower than the $20 billion Adobe was willing to pay, but also higher than the last primary round valuation Figma received, which was $10 billion.
Stripe also held a tender offer for its current and former employees earlier this year. In February, the fintech unicorn announced a secondary sale that valued the company at a whopping $65 billion valuation. While this is lower than the $95 billion valuation the company garnered in 2021, the company is building its valuation back up. This is a sign that Stripe will likely look to build that valuation back up a bit more before hitting the public market.
AI cloud platform Databricks isn't likely on the docket for 2024 either — perhaps to the dismay of the VC investors who last year predicted it as the first company to go public. The company raised a fresh $500 million in capital last fall in a Series I round that valued the startup at $43 billion. While companies don't generally raise funding right before a public listing — that is part of the IPO process, after all — the investors they did raise from this round were crossover investors like T. Rowe Price. Those are not the kind of investors that tend to object to IPOs when market conditions improve are in good shape to be one of the first listings of 2025, if they choose.
Canva isn't likely to go public until at least next year and the design startup may very well likely wait until 2026. Co-founder Cliff Obrecht, the husband of Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, told Startup Daily, an Australian and New Zealand tech publication, in March that an IPO would be at least 12 months away, if not some time in 2026. Lucky for U.S. investors, though, Obrecht also confirmed that when the startup does look to go public, it will do so in the U.S.
TechCrunch is monitoring the late-stage startup and exit markets and will continue to update this article. If you have any tips or callouts to bring to our attention, contact me here: rebecca.szkutak@techcrunch.com.
