How 2026 IPO Market Sets Stage for Anthropic, OpenAI Public Debuts

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Change the IPO market heating up. We still have some major names that could potentially go public this fall. To help navigate the landscape, we wanna welcome in Jim Neesen, managing partner and founder, founding executive, Connor Group, who I also call the IPO whisperer.

**Jim Neesen** (0:15)
Thank you.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:16)
All right, so let's talk report card, because you always do a grade of where things sit now.
You do a grade on quality, type, volume, demand. So walk us through where we sit right now with the report, and I mean, it can't be more timely. Back to school season.

**Jim Neesen** (0:33)
Perfect timing, right?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:34)
Post-Labor Day.

**Jim Neesen** (0:35)
So we call it the Connor Group progress report. And there's three areas we really look at. The first, if you look at IPO volume in 2026, 232 IPOs, about a 4 percent increase from last year. I'm grading that a C. As sort of at expectations. We started the year kind of hot and then it really tempered out. Second is what I would call IPO proceeds.
$99 billion, 200 percent increase from last year. Given that an A minus, the dollars were really good, but it was selective, right? It was very specific types of deals.
The third area is what we call IPO trading performance. Grading that as a C. 55 percent of the IPOs this year are trading above their IPO price. You kind of put that together. What goes on the refrigerator, you get a B minus. And so it sort of is something where I applaud the effort and it's not exactly kind of where I thought it would be. So let's take this fall in the first half of 2027 and let's put something that we really want to be excited about.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:34)
So before we get to that, I think I hear your grade, but at the same time, and this is like me being the student defending the situation, there was a situation beyond the control of the market. That's still ongoing, but we've managed to compartmentalize the geopolitical situation. So is that the fault of the market?

**Jim Neesen** (1:53)
So it's really interesting. It kind of is great a little bit on a curve. There have been rolling shocks all this year.
January, February was tariffs, right? February was SaaSpocalypse. March was the Iran conflict. You had the spring and summer, which was inflation and Fed rates going down to Fed rates going up. And then in July, Iran pops up again. So there has been unprecedented sort of activity going on that no doubt has added to the VIX, added to volatility, and is why, if you remember, in the beginning of the year, we were thinking about maybe a 20 percent increase. Yes. And I would say it has performed strong, has been selective, and there are so many companies on the on-deck circle for both the fall and next year.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:36)
So talk to me about that selectivity. Are you expecting that to be a pattern to continue through the balance of this year?

**Jim Neesen** (2:42)
Yeah, I think it will be.
I almost think about it like that reunion rock tour that happens where you get the greatest hits, and you're like, yes!
And then there's some songs from the new album, you're like, wait a minute, I'm not sure about those. They're going to be some really good companies. Life Sciences Healthcare is still continuing to be the winner. There's 23 companies on file right now. There are a lot of them that haven't even sort of actually flipped their filing. That has been the number one performing sector so far. It will continue to be. AI and AI Adjacent is still extremely strong. Industrials with sort of Defense Tech and Aerospace. Also, there's quite a bit. Then there is a queue of companies, technology, B2B, B2C, materials, energy. You're going to see selected companies come through. They're going to sort of test the waters. Then I think both investors and bankers are going to see the appetite for that next string of companies as well.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:34)
Let me ask you about SPACs. We'll call it Return of the SPACs. I was just talking to a guest earlier though who said that 2026 is not 2022, but it feels very like not necessarily like 2022, but when we had a lot of SPACs, was that 2021?

**Jim Neesen** (3:51)
It was 2021

**SPEAKER_1** (3:52)
Where we had a lot of SPACs. What are you noticing in terms of those patterns and what's different now?

**Jim Neesen** (3:57)
Yeah, so 2021, I think there were 400 to 500 SPACs. We've had 141 so far this year. It's actually represented about 60% of all the IPOs have been SPACs. I think it's a very healthy part of the market in terms of functioning. What happens when the blank check goes out company is they will look for a target company that they will merge with at a later point in time. So you actually have a lot of companies where maybe the traditional IPO isn't where they're getting the banker attention or the investor attention, but they actually have a path to go public through what's called the DSPAC transaction.