Morgan Stanley banker sees 10 to 15 more tech IPOs in 2024, and a ‘better year’ in 2025
Following a long period of waiting, “the IPO market’s back.”
That’s according to Colin Stewart, Morgan Stanley’s global head of technology equity capital markets. In an interview with CNBC’s “TechCheck” on Monday, Stewart said 10 to 15 more tech companies could go public before the end of 2024, with an even “better year” in store for 2025.
“It’s been a long two and a half years, where we’ve had really nothing,” Stewart said. Recent initial public offerings have priced high and traded well, which “bodes well for the future,” he added.
The lull began in 2022, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates pushed investors out of risk, slashed tech valuations and led many tech companies to delay their plans to go public. It was a sharp contrast to the prior two years, which saw a record number of deals, including some at astronomical revenue multiples.
The IPO market cracked open in September, with the debuts of Instacart and Klaviyo. But the first real signs of momentum came last month, as Reddit became the first IPO for a major social media company since Pinterest in 2019 and data center connectivity chip company Astera Labs rocketed on its first day of trading.
Both stocks remain well above their IPO price, with Astera up about 145% as investors pour money into all things tied to artificial intelligence.
Morgan Stanley was the lead banker on the Reddit and Astera IPOs, positioning itself to collect roughly $37 million in total fees.
Wall Street rival Goldman Sachs led the latest venture-backed tech IPO last week. Rubrik, which develops data management software, jumped 16% in its New York Stock Exchange debut.
Bipul Sinha, CEO, Chairman & Co-Founder of Rubrik Inc., the Microsoft backed cybersecurity software startup, waves a flag while posing with employees during the company’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 25, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Stewart, who’s had a hand in some of the largest offerings of the last few decades, said it usually takes six months to take an IPO to the finish line. That means companies currently considering an IPO are likely to hold off until 2025 to avoid intersecting with the U.S. presidential election in November, he said.
As for valuations, Stewart said the market has retreated from the peak days of 2021, and multiples in software and other parts of technology are now back to levels seen in 2018 and 2019. Stewart described 2021 as an “amazing year” but also “exhausting.”
“What’s happened in the last six to 12 months is that the market has gotten more comfortable with paying for growth again,” Stewart said. “We’re not back to the levels of 2021, but we are getting a fair price for growth. And I think at those prices, you’re starting to see companies say, ‘You know, it’s actually not bad to be a public company.'”
Still, the most valuable, late-stage companies have yet to hit the exits. That list includes Elon Musk’s SpaceX along with Stripe and Databricks.
While Stewart said he’d “love to take them public,” he acknowledged that the challenge for the bigger names is “they’ve got scale, they’ve got growth, investors are giving them lots of capital” and they’re investing toward the future.
“Right now the IPO is not on their near-term horizon, unfortunately,” he said. “But when it does come they’ll be blockbuster.”
The U.S. has halted a technology trade deal with the U.K., after officials in Washington became frustrated with the pace of progress, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Announced in September during President Donald Trump’s state visit to the U.K., the “technology prosperity deal” is a sweeping agreement aimed at encouraging collaboration between the countries on tech like artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, and quantum computing.
At the time, Trump said that the deal would “ensure our countries lead the next great technological revolution side by side.” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the agreement was a “generational step change in our relationship with the U.S.” that would deliver “growth, security and opportunity up and down the country.”
Talks were suspended by the U.S. last week, the FT reported, quoting unnamed British officials.
When asked to comment on the report, a U.K. government spokesperson told CNBC: “Our special relationship with the US remains strong and the UK is firmly committed to ensuring the Tech Prosperity Deal delivers opportunity for hardworking people in both countries.”
The agreement would establish AI-enabled research programs in areas including the development of models and datasets in mutual priorities such as AI for biotechnology, precision medicine for cancer and rare and chronic diseases, and fusion energy, the two countries said in September.
It came as the U.K. signed deals totalling £31 billion ($41 billion) with U.S. tech firms like Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave to build out the country’s AI infrastructure. The U.S. is the U.K.’s largest trading partner.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has been approached for comment.
The logo of an Apple Store is seen reflected on the glass exterior of a Samsung flagship store in Shanghai, China Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
Wang Gang | Feature China | Future Publishing | Getty Images
A shortage of memory chips fueled by artificial intelligence players is likely to cause a price rise in smartphones in 2026 and a drop in shipments, Counterpoint Research said in a note on Tuesday.
Smartphone shipments could fall 2.1% in 2026, according to Counterpoint, versus a previous outlook of flat-to-positive growth.
Shipments do not equate to sales but are a measure of demand as they track the number of devices being sent to sales channels like stores.
Meanwhile, the average selling price of smartphones could jump 6.9% year-on-year in 2026, Counterpoint said, in comparison to a previous forecast of a 3.6% rise.
This is being driven by specific chip shortages and bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain, which are pushing up component prices.
The continued build-out of data centres globally has hiked demand for systems developed by Nvidia, which in turn uses components designed by SK Hynix and Samsung — the two biggest suppliers of so-called memory chips.
However, a specific component called dynamic random-access memory or DRAM, which is used in AI data centers, is also critical for smartphones. DRAM prices have surged this year as demand outstrips supply.
For low-end smartphones priced below $200, the bill of materials cost has increased 20% to 30% since the beginning of the year, Counterpoint said. The bill of materials is the cost of producing a single smartphone.
The mid and high-end smartphone segment has seen material costs rise 10% to 15%.
“Memory prices could rise another 40% through Q2 2026, resulting in BoM costs increasing anywhere between 8% and over 15% above current elevated levels,” Counterpoint said.
The rising price of components could be passed on to consumers and that will in turn, drive the rise in the average selling price.
“Apple and Samsung are best positioned to weather the next few quarters,” MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint, said in the note. “But it will be tough for others that don’t have as much wiggle room to manage market share versus profit margins.”
Hwang said this will “play out especially” with Chinese smartphone makers who are in the mid-to-lower end of the market.
Counterpoint said some companies may downgrade components like camera modules, displays and even audio, as well as reusing old components. Smartphone players are likely to try to incentivize consumers to buy their higher-priced devices too.
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