Matt Frankel

Like John said, it's a little more speculative than what I usually invest in.

But this is a real business, and it's one that's really worth watching.

We're seeing a perfect storm forming in the IPO market.

As you mentioned, the AI boom has given rise to some high-profile companies that have a massive ongoing need to raise capital.

I'm not so sure if it's as much of a rush to IPO before a bubble bursts.

It's a rush to get in the market before their money runs out.

After all, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic specifically have committed tens of billions of dollars in capex already with plans to accelerate it in the future.

Plus, the fact that inflation has cooled off significantly, interest rates continue to turn downward, it's created really favorable macroeconomic conditions for IPO valuations.

When you add in the fact that we have a regulatory-friendly administration in the White House and in all the agencies that regulate the stock market, there is a good chance we're going to see this surge of IPO activity in 2026.

I'm in agreement with John, but I'll take it a step further.

Over my investing career, which is 15-20 years, I've observed countless IPOs, and that includes the 2021 IPO and SPAC bubble.

After that, I am really not interested in buying a newly public company whose business is unproven and unprofitable, inconsistent financial results, like John said, that relies on sustained rapid growth to justify these extreme price-to-sales multiples.

I'm looking at some of the recent AI IPOs that we've seen.

For example, the most recent public company in my portfolio is Klarna, K-L-A-R, which went public in mid-2025.

But it's been in business for 20 years, so there's a lot of information out there.

It's a reasonable valuation, it's been consistently profitable, has a substantial market share, especially in its home market in Europe.

With companies like that, I'm interested.

But for the Anthropix, OpenAI, SpaceX's of the world, I'm happy to do what John said and wait until they've been public for a few years and really see how their businesses and financial results develop.

The IPO that I would really love to see is Stripe, but their leadership team has made it clear that they're in no rush to go public anytime soon.

Very recently, they said this.