2026 IPO Market Splits as Anthropic Nears Listing, Nscale Stalls

A record year that has gotten more selective

By any headline measure, 2026 has been a remarkable year for initial public offerings. US issuers priced 114 IPOs raising $147.6 billion through mid-October, according to Renaissance Capital data, more than three times the $44 billion raised in all of 2025.12 The second quarter set a record for US IPOs at $104.8 billion, and the third quarter added 30 deals worth $32.8 billion.12

Look past the totals, though, and October tells a different story. The listings window is still open, but it now favors very large, well-known AI names and is closing on almost everyone else. Anthropic is pressing ahead with a November debut. Several AI infrastructure companies, including Nscale and Switch, have pushed their plans back.39 That gap is the key to the current market. In our view, investors are no longer buying AI exposure in general. They are paying for scale and market position, and they are pushing back hard on businesses whose value rests mostly on contract backlogs.

SpaceX and the megadeal benchmark

SpaceX's June listing reset what counts as a big IPO. The company raised $75 billion at $135 a share, valuing it at about $1.77 trillion and making it the largest IPO ever completed.1214 Not every report uses the same proceeds figure. One market primer puts the raise at more than $86 billion and says the first-day market value reached $2.1 trillion.23 The $75 billion figure appears more often across the coverage.

The stock's path since then has been bumpy. One account says SpaceX jumped about 50% at the start and then settled roughly 15% above its offer price. That account also says the shares were down about 3% over the past month as AI and tech stocks came under pressure.11 Another report says the stock fell to $108 in late July and recovered to above $160 by early October.12 Four days after listing, SpaceX agreed to buy Cursor for $60 billion in stock. That deal closed on August 14 and made up most of US venture-backed exit value in the third quarter.12

Two other 2026 deals rank among Renaissance Capital's all-time top 25 US IPOs. SK hynix raised $26.5 billion in July, the largest US IPO ever by a foreign company. Cerebras raised $5.55 billion in May and closed its first day up 68%.12

Quantinuum shows how fast a debut can unwind

Quantinuum is a useful counterpoint to the megadeals. The Honeywell-backed quantum computing company raised the price range on its IPO twice and finally priced at $60 a share. It raised $1.68 billion, and orders reportedly ran more than 20 times the shares available.44

Reported valuations for the deal vary widely, depending on which moment is being measured. One breakdown puts it at about $12.7 billion at the original target range, roughly $15.6 billion at pricing and about $17.6 billion at the opening trade.41 Another analysis puts the listing valuation at $14 to $15 billion. The $17.6 billion figure that appears in some IPO roundups is the opening-trade number, not the pricing number.1143

Since the listing, the stock has run up and then fallen back. It reached about $86 in the first month, then slid below its offer price by October.42 It closed at $38.65 on October 21.46 The company has said it expects 2026 revenue of $28 to $32 million.44 One analysis calculates that the debut value was more than 500 times the midpoint of that guidance.

Analysts are not all bearish. Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to overweight on October 16 with a $62 price target and named it the bank's top quantum computing pick.42 The company also said on October 19 that its Helios system had reached 99.9995% logical fidelity.46 Two supply events are worth watching. The standard six-month insider lockup ends around early December, and Honeywell has reportedly been looking to sell part of its stake.44

Anthropic: the one deal still moving forward

Anthropic is the IPO the whole market is watching. It filed a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC on June 1, after raising $65 billion at a $965 billion post-money valuation in May.2324 Reports since then have pointed to a valuation above $2 trillion and proceeds of about $100 billion, which would beat SpaceX's record.2226 On October 18, the company said it would commit 5% of its shares to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund.25

The reporting differs on timing and price. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the IPO had moved to November.24 One primer cites Reuters reporting that targets the days around the November midterm elections.23 An IPO tracker lists the deal for the week of November 16.21 A report circulating on October 22, attributed to unnamed sources, said a public S-1 could be filed as soon as that week. It also said investor valuation expectations had fallen from about $2 trillion to roughly $1.5 trillion.28 That account has not been confirmed elsewhere and should be treated with caution. Still, we think it is the more realistic expectation given the sector-wide sell-off.

The deal is also affecting other issuers. Bloomberg reports that bankers are dealing with a mix of risks that could stall IPOs other than Anthropic's. The prospect of an Anthropic deal matching or beating SpaceX is itself a hurdle, because it competes for the same institutional money.33

Nscale and the backlash against backlogs

Nscale is the clearest example of the pullback. The UK-based AI cloud company filed publicly on September 18 to list on the NYSE under the ticker NSCL, seeking to raise up to $3 billion.3335 According to Bloomberg, it has been seeking a valuation of about $30 billion, while some investors have said $16 to $19 billion would be easier to sell.33 One report says the company is still aiming for $30 to $35 billion, though one of its own sources doubted it could get close to that figure.31

The investors' objections come down to three issues:

• Most of the backlog is not yet active. Of more than $103 billion in contracted value at the end of August, only $2.6 billion was active.31
• Revenue depends on two customers. Microsoft and Anthropic account for about 85% of contracted value.35 Microsoft recently pulled out of a UK site because grid power there may not be available until the 2030s.34
• Delays and losses. The company's flagship site in Norway is about six months behind schedule.32 It lost about $1 billion in the first half on revenue of $141 million.31

The $30 billion figure did not come out of nowhere. Nscale's pre-IPO convertible notes, led by Third Point and including $1 billion from Nvidia, convert at a valuation capped at $30 billion. That cap effectively sets the ceiling the company is negotiating against.3235 Nscale's chief executive has told staff that demand for the company's services is "insatiable" and that a listing by year-end is still the goal.37 People familiar with the matter say the deal has nonetheless been pushed back, partly because the company still has to address SEC staff comments.39

The wider sector backs up the investors' caution. CoreWeave shares fell about 25% in a single week.32 Australian data center company Firmus abandoned its IPO, and Oura and Bamboo Insurance postponed their offerings.33 In South Korea, AI services company Elice fell 30% on its first day of trading, even though institutional orders for its shares had run 388 times the amount on offer.8

Asia is still drawing strong demand

While US AI infrastructure deals stall, large listings in Asia are still drawing heavy demand. Jio Platforms opened India's largest-ever IPO, about ₹30,213 crore, at a price band implying a valuation of roughly ₹10.3 lakh crore. Its listing is scheduled for October 28.67 Anchor investors had placed bids of more than ₹2.5 lakh crore, over 30 times the shares available to them.6 Jio's case also shows valuations being cut, however. Its top valuation is well below the more than £110 billion expected when it filed its draft prospectus. The Nifty 50 index is down more than 12% this year.10

Defense technology company Tonbo Imaging listed on October 23 at a 66% premium after its offering was subscribed 135.9 times. All of that offering was sold by existing shareholders, so the company received none of the proceeds.14 In the Philippines, GCash's parent company Mynt completed the largest IPO in the country's history at ₱60.9 billion. Only ₱10.6 billion of that was new capital for the company, and the stock ended its first day flat.5

Our reading

The reporting broadly agrees on the facts: record proceeds, a weakening AI trade and a pipeline that is narrowing. Where it differs is on numbers that are still being negotiated, mainly Anthropic's valuation and Nscale's price. Our conclusion is that 2026's IPO boom now depends almost entirely on a few category-leading companies. OpenAI's planned early-2027 listing belongs in that group.14 Companies whose valuations depend on contracts that are mostly not yet active are being priced down or pushed out of the window.

For investors, recent debuts offer two lessons. Quantinuum's slide shows how quickly a big first-day gain can disappear. Nscale's dispute shows that a company's target valuation is only its opening offer to buyers. If Anthropic prices well below the $2 trillion figure that has been widely discussed, that will most likely reflect a more disciplined market rather than a failed deal.