Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, speaks at the 2025 TIME100 Summit in New York on April 23, 2025.
Jemal Countess | TIME | Getty Images
Stablecoin issuer Circle stands to be one of the first significant cryptocurrency companies to go public in the U.S. That’s not the only unusual aspect of its IPO.
In Circle’s updated prospectus on Tuesday, the company said it would sell 9.6 million shares in the offering, while existing shareholders would sell 14.4 million shares. It’s exceedingly rare in a tech IPO for more shares to come from investors than the company.
Facebook was one of the few notable exceptions. In the social network’s massive 2012 IPO, which raised a then-record $16 billion, 57% of the shares were sold by existing stakeholders. Circle is even higher at 60%.
Circle, the company behind the popular USDC stablecoin, didn’t provide a reason for its decision, and a spokesperson declined to comment. The company is profitable, having generated $64.8 million in net income in the latest quarter. It had almost $850 million in cash and equivalents, and stands to raise another $240 million in the IPO, based on the midpoint of its expected range of $24 to $26 a share, according to Tuesday’s filing.
One reason for the hefty amount of insider sales is likely the extended stretch of meager returns for venture capital firms. After the market peaked in 2021, soaring inflation led to increased interest rates, pushing investors out of risk and forcing late-stage tech companies to forego IPOs, often slashing their valuations to raise money in the private market. Wall Street was bullish on an IPO boom when President Donald Trump took office in January, but few debuts have taken place.
Add it all up, and Silicon Valley’s tech investors are badly in need of liquidity.
“Private investors are desperate for exists so they can distribute back to their investors,” said Lise Buyer, founder of IPO consultancy Class V Group, though she said she isn’t certain of the company’s motivations. “It probably reflects a multiyear drought in IPOs and a strong desire by early investors to get some liquidity.”
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who co-founded the company in 2013, is offloading about 8% of his stake, selling 1.58 million shares, according to the prospectus. Sean Neville, a co-founder and former co-CEO, is slated to sell 11%, as is finance chief Jeremy Fox-Green.
Venture firms Accel, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, IDG Capital, and Oak Investment Partners are all scheduled to sell about 10% of their stock. While insider sales could present a troubling signal to Wall Street, Buyer said the investors’ remaining holdings show they’re still expressing belief in the company.
“The big guys are holding enough so they still have skin in the game, so that shouldn’t alarm investors,” Buyer said.
For most tech IPOs over the years, the percentage of float coming from investors has been significantly below half. In Reddit’s IPO, insiders sold 31% of the shares. The percentage was 36% for online grocery delivery company Instacart in 2023.
Sometimes it’s much less than that. CoreWeave, a former cryptocurrency miner that now rents out Nvidia chips, went public in March, with executives and other shareholders making up 2.4% of the shares sold. Back in December 2020, Airbnb investors accounted for about 3% of IPO shares, and in DoorDash’s IPO that same week, existing investors didn’t sell any stock.
During times when IPOs are hot and stocks are flying after their debut, investors are incentivized to hold and pocket the gains after the lockup period expires. That’s not today’s market, which helps explain why half the shares sold in stock brokerage firm eToro’sIPO earlier this month came from existing investors.
Exit activity for U.S. VCs rose almost 35% last year to $98 billion after hitting the lowest in a decade in 2023, according to the National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook. The peak was over $750 billion in 2021.
“This continuation of the post-2021 liquidity drought highlights persistent issues around exit pathways and investor behavior,” the NVCA wrote in its annual yearbook, which was published in March.
In some cases, companies need insiders to sell stock just so there’s enough float for there to be a market for trading. If Circle wasn’t including investors in its share sale, it would be offering less than 5% of outstanding shares to the public. For eToro that number was 7%.
People stand in front of an Apple store in Beijing, China, on April 9, 2025.
Tingshu Wang | Reuters
Apple iPhone sales in China rose in the second quarter of the year for the first time in two years, Counterpoint Research said, as the tech giant looks to turnaround its business in one of its most critical markets.
Sales of iPhones in China jumped 8% year-on-year in the three months to the end of June, according to Counterpoint Research. It’s the first time Apple has recorded growth in China since the second quarter of 2023.
Apple’s performance was boosted by promotions in May as Chinese e-commerce firms discounted Apple’s iPhone 16 models, its latest devices, Counterpoint said. The tech giant also increased trade-in prices for some iPhone.
“Apple’s adjustment of iPhone prices in May was well timed and well received, coming a week ahead of the 618 shopping festival,” Ethan Qi, associate director at Counterpoint said in a press release. The 618 shopping festival happens in China every June and e-commerce retailers offer heavy discounts.
Apple’s return to growth in China will be welcomed by investors who have seen the company’s stock fall around 15% this year as it faces a number of headwinds.
Since then, Huawei has aggressively launched devices in China and has even begun dipping its toe back into international markets. The Chinese tech giant has found success eating away at some of Apple’s market share in China.
Huawei’s sales rose 12% year-on-year in the second-quarter, according to Counterpoint. The firm was the biggest player in China by market share in the second quarter, followed by Vivo and then Apple in third place.
“Huawei is still riding high on core user loyalty as they replace their old phones for new Huawei releases,” Counterpoint Senior Analyst Ivan Lam said.
Chinese tech giant Baidu has bolstered its core search platform with artificial intelligence in the biggest overhaul of the product in 10 years.
Analysts told CNBC the move was a bid to keep ahead of fast-moving rivals like DeepSeek, rather than traditional search players.
“There has been some small pressure on the search business but the focus on AI and Ernie Bot is a key move ahead,” Dan Ives, global head of tech research at Wedbush Securities, told CNBC by email. Ernie Bot is Baidu’s AI chatbot.
“Baidu is not waiting around to watch the paint dry, full steam ahead on AI,” he added.
Baidu AI overhaul
Baidu is China’s biggest search engine, but — as is also being seen by Google — the search market is being disrupted.
Users are flocking instead to AI services such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek, which shocked the world this year with its advanced model it claimed was created at a fraction of the cost of rivals.
But Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, also noted that short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also getting into AI search and piling pressure on Baidu.
To counter this, Baidu made some major changes to its core search product:
Users can now enter more than a thousand characters in the search box, versus 28 previously;
Questions can be asked in a more direct and conversational manner, mirroring how people now use chatbots;
Users can ask questions through voice but also prompt the seach engine with pictures and files;
Baidu has integrated its AI chatbot features, which enable users to generate photos, text and videos, into the product.
“This is more aligned with how people use ChatGPT and DeepSeek in terms of how they look for answers,” Wang said.
Outside of China, Google has also been looking to enhance its core search product with AI, highlighting how search has been under pressure from the burgeoning technology.
Baidu on the offense
Baidu was one of China’s first movers when it came to AI, releasing its first models and ChatGPT-style product Ernie Bot to the public in 2023. Since then, it has aggressively launched updated AI models.
However, the Beijing-headquartered company has also faced intense competition from fellow tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, as well as upstarts such as DeepSeek.
These companies have also been launching new models and infusing AI into their products and Baidu’s stock has fallen behind as a result. Baidu shares have risen around 2.5% this year, versus a 30.5% surge for Alibaba and a 20% rise for Tencent.
“This is a defensive and offensive move … Baidu needs to be aggressive and perception-wise show they are not the little brother to Tencent on the AI front,” Wedbush Securities’ Ives added.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.
The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.
“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.
He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.
Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.
“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”
Undecided on location
Founded in 2022 by Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup that competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
The company divides its business into three main camps: consumer-facing voice assistants, integrations with corporates such as Cisco, and tailor-made applications for specific industries like health care.
Staniszewski said the firm hasn’t yet decided where it could list, but that this decision will largely rest on where most of its users are located at the time.
“If the U.K. is able to start accelerating,” ElevenLabs will consider London as a listing destination, Staniszewski said.
The city has faced criticisms from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that its stock market is unfavorable toward high-growth tech firms.
Meanwhile, British money transfer firm Wiselast month said it plans to move its primary listing location to the U.S.,
Fundraising plans
ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.
Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.