SpaceX advertising on a digital billboard in Times Square celebrates the launch of SpaceX’s initial public offering in New York on June 12, 2026.
Angela Weiss Afp | Getty Images
In 2026, investors are excited by the prospect of new initial public offerings, including from mega-cap private companies SpaceXAnthropic and OpenAI.
But now investors have to pay less than they expected at the beginning of the year, with OpenAI set to debut on the public market in 2026 and some planned offerings delayed this year.
On Kalshi’s prediction market platform, speculators think the only major company that could officially announce an IPO this year is Anthropic, which secretly filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early June.
The market in Kalshi asked traders if they think a series of companies will officially announce an IPO in 2026. The question of what constitutes an official announcement is resolved by the SEC stating that the S-1 company is effective, the IPO price or the exchange gives a ticker for the stock. Contracts are finalized using various news outlets as sources.
Of the 23 companies that Kalshi listed on the market that remain open for trading, only Anthropic offers more than 50% odds – 75% as of Monday morning – of officially announcing an IPO this year.
Traders in January gave financial technology company Plaid a 50% chance of debuting on the public market this year. Now they’re only giving 10% of the company, which is reportedly worth $8 billion on the private market, a chance to go public.
Human resources and payroll platform Deel 50-50 odds as recently as February, but now speculators see only a 3% chance of the company going public in 2026. Cloud and artificial intelligence platform Databricks odds are only 1%, after seeing more than 50% odds in January.
Additionally, OpenAI – Anthropic’s main competitor – has only a 3% chance of going public after CEO Sam Altman said last month it would not make sense to go public due to concerns about AI security. Traders at Kalshi only carry a 50-50 chance of OpenAI making an official IPO announcement in June 2027.
Delays in growth
IPO postponements, from all sectors, have grown in recent weeks. And while this year’s IPO proceeds are up sharply, driven by mega-cap debuts, in particular SpaceX in June, the number of US IPOs priced this year is actually down 33% compared to 2025, according to Renaissance Capital.
Investors are betting on major AI companies, as well as products that contribute to building AI, to move from the private market to the public market as they seek greater capital to fund development. Many are growing rapidly, and the public market appears to be the next step in supporting that growth.
Optimistic growth assumptions were questioned last week, but when Anthropic reported revenue of $16.8 billion in the third quarter, growth was weaker than last quarter.
“More questions than answers have arisen about the reasons for the decline in revenue growth in September and whether Anthropic can increase revenue at the level expected by the market, such as dynamics. [large language model] pricing pressure,” wrote 22V Research analyst Dauvin Peterson on Friday. “At the end of the day, the revised IPO valuation range starting at $1.5T vs. previous expectations of at least $2T is viewed as disappointing and adds fuel to AI-related equities that are already under pressure.”
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisitions and minority investments.