10 top upcoming IPOs to watch in 2022.
Last year was the year of the initial public offering. Wall Street set records with both the number of IPOs that hit markets — more than 1,000 — and the total amount raised, which exceeded $300 billion and smashed the previous annual record by more than 50%. A horrendous start to the trading year makes 2022’s environment far more hostile to hot upcoming IPOs, but there are still a handful of elite privately owned companies primed for a debut on one of the major exchanges by year’s end. Here are 10 of the most anticipated upcoming IPOs to watch for in 2022.
Discord
Named by U.S. News as one of the top upcoming IPOs to watch in 2022 back in December, the popular social messaging app hasn’t yet confirmed a move to go public, but more and more signs are pointing to a move to tap public markets. In March, Bloomberg reported that Discord was interviewing investment bankers to prepare to go public, indicating that a formal announcement could be imminent. The company is reportedly considering a direct listing. Discord, which surged in popularity during the pandemic and enjoys a strong brand and cult-like user base, is a popular communication tool in the gaming and cryptocurrency communities. Confident in its ability to keep growing, Discord turned down a $12 billion buyout offer from Microsoft Corp. (ticker: MSFT) last year. In September, the company raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $15 billion
Popular social media and message board website Reddit filed confidentially for an IPO in late 2021, giving good indication that it would be one of the biggest upcoming IPOs in 2022. Reddit’s valuation has gone parabolic in recent years, with private financing rounds valuing the company at $3 billion in 2020 and $10 billion in 2021. Late-stage private investors always bet that an eventual IPO will bring substantial upside, and when Reddit picked Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) as lead underwriters for its initial public offering in January, Reddit was said to be seeking a public valuation of more than $15 billion. Given the rough start for tech stocks in 2022, it’s possible that Reddit and Discord will have to compromise on their ideal valuations, but time will tell.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $15 billion
Instacart
Instacart, like Discord, ended up benefiting from pandemic-era lockdowns and the subsequent work-from-home economy that largely continues into 2022. The grocery delivery app onboarded tons of new users in 2020 as people isolated, masked up and even wiped down groceries that were left at their doorstep. The company’s revenue reportedly more than tripled to $1.5 billion in 2020, but there’s been an expected slowdown in growth as consumer behavior has steadily normalized. Still, the company’s long-term growth trajectory was massively accelerated, and despite steep competition from Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER), Instacart remains one of the hottest private companies yet to tap the public markets. It pushed back plans to go public last year as it focuses on expanding its business to areas like digital advertising.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $39 billion
Databricks
It’s rare for companies to achieve valuations of more than $30 billion without IPO chatter, and cloud-based data storage and analysis company Databricks is no exception. While the company hasn’t yet announced public money-raising plans, it’s easily one of the hottest investments in the world of venture capital. The high-tech firm, whose services use artificial intelligence to sort, cleanse and present Big Data for customers, raised $1.6 billion at a $38 billion valuation last year from investors that included Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK) and the University of California’s investment fund. Unfazed by the market beatdown peer Snowflake Inc. (SNOW) has taken — the Warren Buffett holding is off about 50% in 2022 through mid-March — CEO Ali Ghodsi said earlier this year that the company’s “growth rate will break through the multiple compression that’s happening in the market” if and when Databricks goes public.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $38 billion
Chime
Another fast-growing private company is financial technology, or fintech, leader Chime, a digital bank catering to average people looking to save a dollar. Unlike traditional banks, which make small fortunes on low-income and financially uneducated customers via monthly fees, overdraft charges and account minimums, Chime is going for the mass market by ditching such revenue streams. Chime’s private valuation soared from $15 billion in 2020 to $25 billion in 2021. Entering 2022, the company was reported to be pursuing an IPO as early as the first quarter, but Chime is reportedly pushing back its 2022 IPO plans to the second half of the year as it doubles down on new product releases. Incidentally, fintech stocks have also gotten hammered in the first quarter, with stocks like SoFi Technologies Inc. (SOFI) and PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL) each off nearly 50% year to date.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $35 billion to $45 billion
The Fresh Market
North Carolina-based supermarket chain The Fresh Market has been through this before, going public in 2010 before being taken private in a $1.36 billion cash deal by private equity firm Apollo Global Management in 2016. Six years later, The Fresh Market has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public yet again and intends to use the proceeds, in part, to refinance higher-interest-rate debt. The Fresh Market, which operates 159 stores and paused expansion in recent years to focus on its core business, plans to ramp up expansion, opening two stores in fiscal 2022, eight stores in fiscal 2023 and about 12 stores each in subsequent fiscal years. The company, which has filed to be listed on Nasdaq and trade under the TFM ticker, is also rolling out a loyalty rewards program it’s been testing at select stores to all its locations.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: More than $1 billion
Mobileye
Like The Fresh Market, Mobileye has been public before and has concrete plans to return to the sweet embrace of public markets. Or rather, chipmaker Intel Corp. (INTC) has plans to take Mobileye public again, five years after acquiring the machine vision company for $15.3 billion. One of the leaders in self-driving-car technology, Mobileye provides its tech to major automakers like Ford Motor Co. (F) and Volkswagen. Intel originally planned to integrate Mobileye’s technology and patents into its own self-driving division, but the option to spin out Mobileye as a separate company and retain a majority ownership in the business may be the best way for Intel, which is struggling to catch up to faster-growing rivals like Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), to capitalize on one of its most prized possessions.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $50 billion
Impossible Foods
As is the case with a number of other hot IPOs to watch for 2022, Impossible Foods has seen 2021’s fantastic window of opportunity devolve into a bloodbath for recently public companies in the wake of rate hikes, valuation fears, high inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The closest publicly traded analog to Impossible Foods is the other major player in plant-based meats, Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND), which has taken a roughly 40% haircut since the beginning of the year. While Impossible Foods may be wise to wait until the latter half of 2022 for an IPO, the CEO called going public “inevitable” as recently as November, the same month the company raised $500 million at an undisclosed valuation. The firm, whose products are carried by the likes of Burger King and Starbucks Corp. (SBUX), was reportedly seeking a $7 billion valuation at the time.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $7 billion
VinFast
Vietnam’s largest conglomerate, Vingroup, has announced plans to target a U.S. IPO for its electric vehicle arm, VinFast, in the second half of 2022. If the move is anything close to what its parent company had hoped, it will be a huge endeavor: The company has stated its intention to raise $3 billion at a $60 billion valuation in the eventual U.S. listing. Although a December news report quoted the young company as targeting 42,000 vehicle sales in 2022 — up sharply from its previous forecast of 15,000 — investors will likely have to regain their appetite for risk for VinFast’s aspirational valuation to become a reality.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: $60 billion
Stripe
The biggest elephant in the room when it comes to hot upcoming IPOs to watch in 2022 is San Francisco-based online payments giant Stripe, which enjoys plenty of funding from venture capitalists and institutional investors. The company was last valued at $95 billion in a $600 million funding round in May 2021. This allows Stripe, whose e-commerce software processes payments for massive tech players like Amazon.com and Alphabet Inc.’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Google, to bide its time and wait for perfect conditions and a mind-blowing valuation before offering shares to the general public. As with other hot tech startups, Stripe’s growth massively accelerated during the pandemic as consumers flocked to online stores to shop. Between April 2020 and roughly a year later, Stripe’s valuation surged from $36 billion to $95 billion in private funding rounds.
Potential 2022 IPO valuation: More than $100 billion
10 upcoming 2022 IPOs to watch:
— Discord
— Instacart
— Databricks
— Chime
— The Fresh Market
— Mobileye
— Impossible Foods
— VinFast
— Stripe
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10 Hot Upcoming IPOs to Watch in 2022 originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 03/16/22: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
