The US initial public offering (IPO) market in 2025 showed mixed results, with numerous companies from sectors including cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, energy, and healthcare going public. However, the market did not see the usual surge in IPO prices, and average returns lagged behind the broader market. This phenomenon indicates that storytelling is no longer sufficient to support valuations, and investors are returning to fundamentals.
US IPOs are picking up, but lagging behind the broader market; accurate stock selection is key.
Bloomberg reports that while the US IPO market successfully recovered from the slump of previous years in 2025, its performance was not particularly impressive. Statistics show that, excluding closed-end funds and SPACs, the weighted average increase for listed companies that year was 13.9%, lagging behind the S&P 500's 16% increase over the same period.
In other words, for most investors, focusing on the overall market is better than betting heavily on newly listed companies. The fact that the market is no longer experiencing a broad-based rally has also significantly increased the risks of entering IPOs and the difficulty of stock selection.
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Does size determine fate? Winners show that mature companies are highly favored.
Further analysis reveals a clear disparity in IPO performance based on scale. Mid-sized IPOs raising between $500 million and $1 billion saw an average increase of only 5.6%, while large-scale listings raising over $1 billion experienced an average increase of nearly 20%.
For example, large, established companies seem to be more favored by the market. Medical device maker Medline became the IPO winner of the year with $7.2 billion, and its stock price has steadily increased by 40% since its listing.
Mike Bellin, head of PwC's U.S. IPOs, pointed out that the market is currently only opening its doors to companies that are "well-prepared":
Investors are no longer chasing short-term momentum, but instead are placing greater emphasis on the quality of a company's business. They have raised the standards for companies about to go public, with mid-sized companies whose financial health is not yet fully established bearing the brunt.
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The AI myth cools down: From brimming confidence to a stock price crash
Artificial intelligence remains one of the core themes for IPOs in 2025, but the results have been mixed.
For example, data center developer Fermi went public with no revenue, raising $785 million thanks to the AI boom, but confidence has since collapsed and its stock price has plummeted 69% from its IPO price. Business travel payment management platform Navan also failed to maintain its IPO momentum, and its stock price remains below its offering price.
Conversely, CoreWeave stands out as one of the few successful AI cases. Transforming from a mining company into a cloud infrastructure provider, this AI giant, often referred to as " Nvidia's darling ," now boasts a market capitalization exceeding $50 billion.
Looking at the cryptocurrency IPO wave: volatile and underwhelming.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency industry also saw a long-awaited wave of IPOs last year, but volatility remained high.
Stablecoin issuer Circle was the biggest highlight, raising over $1.2 billion in its IPO and seeing its stock price surge 278% in its first week. Even though the upward momentum cooled afterward, it is still trading about 169% higher than its IPO price, demonstrating market acceptance of compliant stablecoin companies. However, most crypto IPOs performed poorly. Exchange Gemini , despite rising on its first day, quickly fell below its IPO price and is now down over 60% from its IPO price.
Other companies, including Crypto Reserve (DAT), have also failed to escape the predicament of high volatility and lack of confidence, reflecting that investors' cautious attitude towards the crypto industry has not disappeared due to listing.
Looking ahead to 2026 IPOs, which crypto companies will go public?
Looking ahead to 2026, crypto companies intending to go public include:
- Grayscale , an asset management company (valued at $30 billion)
- Kraken exchange (valued at $20 billion)
- Cold wallet provider Ledger (valued at $1.5 billion in 2023)
- Ethereum software developer Consensys (valued at $7 billion)
- CustodianBitGo (valued at $1.75 billion in early 2025)
In the non-crypto companies sector, companies such as SpaceX (valued at $800 billion), OpenAI (valued at $1 trillion), and Anthropic (valued at $300 billion) are also highly anticipated targets.
This article, titled "Cryptocurrencies Drag Down US IPO Market Performance in 2025, Returns Dismal Compared to Investing in the S&P 500," first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
