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As tech startups test the IPO market again, they are pushing up their valuations.
After last week’s successful market debut of chip company Arm, two of the most eagerly anticipated IPOs of former high-flying startups have upped their initial public offering valuations — online grocery firm Instacart and marketing automation company Klaviyo.
But don’t be fooled. In upping IPO ranges, tech stocks are still coming out humbled by the post-2021 IPO market slump. The slate of recent and planned tech initial public offerings will test the market’s appetite for new stocks, and experts say the overall IPO resurgence could be slow — and not without bumps.
Instacart and Klaviyo are both expected to make their debuts on the public market as soon as this week. Arm’s jump of nearly 25% during its first trading day Thursday marked the end of a quiet two years for tech IPOs. But these companies are coming to market in a much different environment than those that went public during the IPO, SPAC and meme stock frenzies of 2020 and 2021. Since then, companies have been contending with record-high inflation, interest rate hikes, concerns for the banking sector, and volatile markets.
The majority (70%) of 73 IPOs year-to-date were trading below their IPO price at the time of Arm’s deal, but most are smaller cap companies, and about half are based outside the U.S.
“We see this as a major turning point,” Matt Kennedy, senior IPO market strategist for Renaissance Capital, said of the first major tech IPOs of the year. “This has been the slowest IPO market in over a decade and we seem to be finally coming out of that.”
Investors are struggling to assess what companies are worth and are waiting for the IPO market to pick back up, said Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder at Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research.
“It’s a valuation game and what we’re all trying to figure out right now is, what are they really worth?” Wang said. Growth expectations are down, the availability of funding for these types of investments is down, and many investors are still sitting on the sidelines, he added.
Debuting in an uncertain market means companies and investors have had to say goodbye to the soaring valuations they saw when the IPO market was buzzing two years ago. But Instacart raised its valuation target on Friday to up to $10 billion from as much as $9.3 billion after Arm’s successful market debut. That is still a steep decline from the grocery company’s $39 billion valuation in 2021, and a 75% hit to be absorbed by venture capital investors. Klaviyo is targeting a valuation of up to $9 billion on a fully diluted basis, just slightly below its $9.5 billion valuation in 2021.
The rising cost of raising capital as a result of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes has weighed on future cash flows of companies and their overall valuations. The state of the global economy and the standstill in the IPO market since 2021 has also put a damper on valuations, Wang said.
The market product Instacart is selling
The good news: valuations look “a lot more reasonable,” Kennedy said, compared to two years ago when investors were basically willing to pay anything. He said investors are more focused on profitability than they were in 2021 and companies are recognizing that. Broadly, the tech pipeline has spent the last two years attempting to improve profitability in order to come to market while maintaining their growth and trying to pitch a reasonable valuation, he added.
Instacart is a prime example of this approach to a successful IPO, looking more like a value stock today than a high-flying, money losing tech startup.
“They really need to show that they have a strong fundamental base,” Kennedy said.
Instacart and Klaviyo have solid growth similar to what investors saw two years ago, and importantly, now these companies are not hemorrhaging cash, he added.
Instacart and Klaviyo’s lower valuations could be indicative of the outlook for other venture capital-backed companies and tech IPOs going forward — even those that are profitable, said Kyle Stanford, lead VC analyst at PitchBook. “There’s going to be a struggle for a lot of tech companies and VC-backed companies to come to the public markets and get a positive valuation jump from the get-go,” he said.
He doesn’t expect these highly anticipated public debuts to translate into an immediate broader resurgence of tech IPOs. The opportunity for tech debuts will likely be slower over the rest of the year than many people want to see, Kennedy said, though it can slowly gain momentum with a more typical IPO market possible by early 2024.
What to know before investing in IPO stocks
IPOs can have very volatile trading in the first weeks or even months after a listing. That may be especially true for some of the current deals since they’re the first major tech IPOs of the year and have a relatively lower proportion of shares being sold relative to market cap than historical averages, Kennedy said.
Arm’s stock price was down roughly 5% on Monday morning after its Friday first-day pop.
“My advice would be don’t feel like you need to chase the crowd,” Kennedy said. “And if you do, at least be aware that that’s what you’re doing and have an exit strategy in mind.”
There tends to be an initial excitement with IPOs during which the price gets bid up before losing momentum. Often it’s better to wait until after the first major pullback, Kennedy said.
While these tech IPOs are growth companies, their recent profitability doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be profitable in the long term. And according to Stanford, if the market doesn’t shift back to putting a premium on growth, they’re going to have a difficult time in the public market.
“These companies are risky, especially in a market where your two-year bond is paying almost 5%,” Stanford said. “It’s still an uncertain market and if inflation were to rise back up or interest rates continue to go back up, these riskier tech stocks are going to take a hit.”
Companies will need to show continued growth, profitability and a decent valuation before we see the IPO market back in full swing, Kennedy said.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai meets with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, Poland, on February 13, 2025.
Klaudia Radecka | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Google has reversed a policy forbidding employees from discussing its antitrust woes following a settlement with workers.
The company sent a notice to U.S. employees last week saying it rescinded “the rule requesting that workers refrain from commenting internally or externally about the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice,” according to correspondence viewed by CNBC.
Google settled with the Alphabet Workers Union, which represents company employees and contractors, according to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB. The settlement and policy reversal mark a major victory for Google staffers, who have seen increased censorship on subjects such as politics, litigation and defense contracts by the search giant since 2019.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, alleging that the company has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance.
Google said it “will not announce or maintain overbroad rules or policies that restrict your right to comment, internally or externally, about whether and/or how the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice may impact your terms and conditions of employment,” according to last week’s notice.
The policy change was first reported by The New York Times.
The reversal comes as Google and the DOJ prepare to return to the courtroom for their scheduled remedies trial on April 21. The DOJ has said it is considering structural remedies, including breaking up Google’s Chrome web browser, which it argues gives Google an unfair advantage in the search market.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled in August that Google illegally held a monopoly in the search market. Google said it would appeal the decision. The DOJ doubled down on its calls for a breakup in a March filing.
Following the August ruling, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, sent a companywide email directing employees to “refrain from commenting on this case, both internally and externally.”
Shortly after, the Alphabet Workers Union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Google with the NLRB. The union alleged that Walker’s message was an “overly broad directive” and said that a breakup could impact workers’ roles. The NLRB in March ruled that Google must allow workers to speak on such topics.
Google’s settlement states that the National Labor Relations Act gives employees the right to form, join or assist a union. It notes that Google is not rescinding its prior clarification that states employees may not speak on behalf of Google on this matter without approval from the company. The settlement also adds that Google will not interfere with, restrain or coerce workers in the exercise of their rights.
Despite the settlement, spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said Google did not agree with the NLRB’s ruling.
“To avoid lengthy litigation, we agreed to remind employees that they have the right to talk about their employment, as they’ve always been free to and regularly do,” Mencini said in a statement to CNBC.
The settlement by Google comes at a “crucial moment” ahead of the remedies trial, the Alphabet Worker’s Union said Monday.
“We think the potential remedies from this trial could have impact on our wages, working conditions and terms of employment,” said Stephen McMurtry, communications chair of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, told CNBC.
Apple CEO Tim Cook inspects the new iPhone 16 during an Apple special event at Apple headquarters on September 09, 2024 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Apple shares skyrocketed 15% on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which would have affected the company’s production locations in Vietnam, India, and Thailand.
The rally added over $400 billion to Apple’s market cap, which now stands just under $3 trillion. It was Apple’s best day since January 1998, when late founder Steve Jobs was the interim CEO and three years before the company unveiled the first iPod. At the time, Apple’s market cap was close to $3 billion.
Apple has been the most prominent name to get whacked by Trump’s tariffs. Before Wednesday, it was on its worst four-day trading stretch since 2000. Investors worried about Apple’s outlook because the company still makes the majority of its revenue from selling physical devices, which need to be imported into the U.S.
Most of Apple’s iPhones and other hardware products are still made in China, which was not exempted from tariffs on Wednesday. In fact, Trump increased tariffs on China to 125% on Wednesday, up from 54%.
China issued an 84% tariff on U.S. goods this week, raising the possibility that Apple could get caught up in a trade war and lose ground in China, its third-largest market by sales.
Apple has worked to diversify its supply chain to lessen reliance on China in recent years.
On Wednesday, tariffs on Vietnam were reduced from 46% to 10%, and tariffs on India were cut 26% to 10%, which raises the possibility that Apple will be able to serve a large percentage of its U.S. customers from factories outside of China with lower tariffs.
Stocks skyrocketed across the board on Wednesday after Trump announced the tariff pause. The Nasdaq Composite climbed over 12%, its second-best day ever.
Apple hasn’t commented publicly on Trump’s tariffs, but CEO Tim Cook will likely address the topic on an earnings call on May 1.
The Nasdaq Marketsite is seen during morning trading on April 7, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Every bear market has days like this.
The Nasdaq soared 12% on Wednesday, the second-best day on record for the tech-heavy index and its sharpest rally since January 2001, which was the middle of the dot-com crash.
During the financial crisis in October 2008, the Nasdaq enjoyed two of its best five days ever. The other two came as the tech bubble was bursting. The index’s sixth-best day since its beginning in 1971 came on March 13, 2020, as the Covid pandemic was hitting the U.S.
Of the 25 best days for the Nasdaq, including Wednesday, 22 took place during the dot-com collapse, the 2008-09 financial crisis or the early days of Covid. One occurred on Oct. 21, 1987, two days after Black Monday. The other was in November 2022.
Call it a dead-cat bounce, a relief rally or short covering. It’s a familiar reaction during the worst of times for Wall Street.
Be prepared for plenty more volatility.
The worst month on record for the Nasdaq was October 1987, when the index plunged 27%. Second to that was a 23% drop in November 2000. In March 2020, the Nasdaq sank 10%. It’s still down 1% this month just after closing out its worst quarter since 2022.
President Donald Trump sparked the Wednesday bounce when he dropped new tariff rates on imports from most U.S. trade partners to 10% for 90 days to allow trade negotiations with those countries. The president’s social media post lifted optimism that levies would be less severe than expected and immediately boosted a market that’s been hammered since Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff plan last week.
Wealthy Trump donors and business leaders, including hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and billionaire investor Leon Cooperman have weighed in with hefty criticism of Trump’s tariffs. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier on Wednesday that the tariffs will likely lead to a recession, after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Monday at an event in New York that, “Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 24, 2025.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s closest confidantes in the White House, spent the early part of this week slamming Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor, calling him a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Musk’s electric vehicle company has gotten pummeled of late, tumbling 22% in the four prior trading sessions after suffering its worst quarter since 2022. The stock soared 23% on Wednesday, its second-best day on record.
The big difference between the current market tumult and the downturns in 1987, 2000-2001, 2008 and 2020 is that many investors say this one was easily avoidable and, potentially, can be reversed based on what the president decides to do.
“What Trump unveiled Wednesday is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools,” investor Ken Fisher wrote in a post on X on Monday, referring to last week’s announcement. “Yet, as near as I can tell it will fade and fail and the fear is bigger than the problem, which from here is bullish.”
Trying to predict Trump’s next move is a fool’s errand.
On Sunday evening the president told reporters that he’s not trying to push the market down, “but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” He stressed the importance of fixing the country’s trade deficit with China, and said “unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.”
The president is keeping his hard line on China, at least for now. He said on Wednesday that he was raising the tariff on China higher, to 125%. All other countries would go back to the 10% baseline tariff rate as negotiations take place.
Prior to his latest pronouncement, economic fears had spilled into the bond market, raising concerns that higher interest rates would create further problems for consumers at the worst possible time. The 10-year Treasury note yield, which helps decide rates on mortgages, credit card debt and auto loans, spiked overnight to 4.51% after hitting 3.9% last week. It’s currently at 4.38%.
As the tech industry’s megacap companies, which make up an outsized portion of the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, prepare to report quarterly results starting late this month, management teams will be looking for some visibility that can guide forecasts for the rest of the year and into 2026.
In the absence of more clarity, many of their plans will likely be on hold as they figure out how much existing and expected tariffs will raise costs and hurt revenue, and what they need to do to shore up supply chains.
Wednesday provided some relief. Investors like Ackman are celebrating.
“This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump,” Ackman wrote on X. “Textbook, Art of the Deal.”
In a note, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called it “the news we and everyone on the Street was waiting for” after the president’s “self-inflicted Armageddon.”
But for companies that are in the crosshairs of Trump’s wavering policy decisions, all the uncertainty remains.
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