IPO and exit activity for private companies

In this short clip from our Q3 Forge Investment Outlook webinar, Andrew Alden, Senior Director of Quantitative Analytics, looks at IPOs, M&C and exit activity in the current market. And learn more about “The Great Reset” and find additional private market data in the Forge Investment Outlook report.

Dan ChaparianVP of Product Marketing, Forge

People obviously pay a lot of attention to IPOs. And the pace of the IPO market and the private market tend to be pretty closely tied together. When companies are going public, that suggests improved market dynamics, which tend to trickle down into the private secondary markets. So, as we know, the IPO pipeline was pretty active in 2021. And it obviously slowed down considerably in 2022 as inflation and interest rate hikes all set in. So, how has 2023 gone so far?

And what do you see in the second half of the year?

Andrew AldenSenior Director of Quantitative Analytics, Forge

That's certainly something a lot of people are talking about right now. We recently put together a chart to show various exit activities and help show us where we're at and how that looks in the context of the last few years. Overall, what we see is low, but steady activity levels in 2022 and 2023. IPO and SPAC activity came down considerably from 2021, which we all already know. But we continue to see steady M&A in each quarter.

And we are seeing hints of renewed energy in the IPO space.

Cava's IPO last quarter at a near $5 billion valuation got people excited that IPOs can happen again. And there's some interesting IPOs in the pipeline potentially for the coming months. Klaviyo is a large one. They confidentially filed back in May. And then, of course, there's also, as there always is, rumors flying about which other companies may seek a public market exit soon too. But we'll see. We're always watching the IPO picture.

And I think the back half of 2023 will be really interesting.

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