By Paul R. La Monica
The broadening out of the stock market rally is starting to show up in the initial public offering market as well. Eight sizable private companies are on tap to make their Wall Street debuts this week -- and only two of them could be considered artificial-intelligence darlings.
This week's slate of new stocks could get a lukewarm reception from investors, given the lackluster record for other recent IPOs. At the very least, this week is a key test of just how strong IPO demand is ahead of potential blockbuster stock sales later this year from Elon Musk's SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Several biotechs, consumer firms Once Upon a Farm and Bob's Discount Furtniture, advertising app company Liftoff Mobile, and electrical equipment manufacturer Forgent Power Solutions are scheduled to begin trading later this week.
Forgent is the largest of the group. The company, which makes transformers and switches and does big business with data centers, could benefit from booming energy demand tied to AI. Forgent is looking to sell 56 million shares at a range of $25 to $29. At the high end of that range, Forgent would raise more than $1.6 billion and have a market value of $8.8 billion. It will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FPS.
As Barron's noted in this week's Energy Insider newsletter, Forgent is profitable and revenue is growing rapidly. But the valuation looks steep and competition is fierce. So even if Forgent enjoys a big pop once it begins trading, it's possible that shares could then pull back.
In fact, that is exactly what has happened to several other widely touted IPOs of the past few months. Although 2025 was a solid year for new stocks, with companies like CoreWeave and Circle Internet Group enjoying success earlier in the year, more recent IPOs have fizzled fast.
StubHub, Klarna, Gemini Space Station, Figma, and Wealthfront are among the IPOs from later in 2025 that are now trading below their offering prices.
And just this year, shares of crypto firm BitGo; satellite company York Space Systems; Brazilian fintech PicPay; and online life insurer Ethos Technologies have all tumbled below their IPO prices. Construction equipment rental company EquipmentShare.com is bucking the trend, rising more than 30% from its offering price.
Andrew Alden, vice president of quantitative research with Forge Global, a firm that lets investors buy and sell shares of pre-IPO privately held companies, told Barron's that it's typical to see IPOs fall a bit from their first-day highs. However, it has been "a little perplexing why stocks have sold off the way they have" for the most recent round of IPOs, he said.
One possible reason? Alden noted that investors are definitely very eager for the three megacap unicorns that could go public later this year.
"These are market leading companies seeking large capital raises. It's unprecedented and it will be interesting to see how investors absorb that," he said.
In addition to SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, Alden says demand is likely to be strong for other well-known, large private companies that could be entering public markets in a few months, such as crypto firm Kraken, group chat service Discord, and fitness app Strava.
That may not bode well for this week's IPOs, which aren't necessarily household names with retail investors. Liftoff Mobile, which is controlled by private-equity firm Blackstone, faces the additional challenge of not being profitable. The company lost $25.6 million in the first nine months of last year, following a loss of $48.2 million in 2024. Sales grew rapidly though, rising 30% in the first three quarters of 2025. Liftoff generates revenue primarily from its Cortex machine learning-based AI model for mobile advertising.
Liftoff, which also has a big minority stake investment from private-equity firm General Atlantic, would be worth $5.2 billion at the high end of its proposed $26 to $30 price range. The company would raise $762 million through its sale of 25.4 million shares. The stock will trade under the ticker symbol LFTO on the Nasdaq.
In addition to Forgent, Liftoff, Once Upon a Farm, and Bob's, four biotechs are set to go public this week as well: SpyGlass Pharma, Agomab Therapeutics, Veradermics, and Eikon Therapeutics. They are on the smaller side, with SpyGlass looking to raise around $150 million and Eikon set to sell $300 million worth of stock. The other two biotechs are each expected to raise $200 million from their IPOs.
Biotechs, particularly smaller and earlier stage firms, do tend to be inherently risky. But for what it's worth, the sector is off to a hot start this year with the State Street SPDR S&P Biotech exchange-traded fund up more than 5% already. So it will be interesting to see if any of these biotechs are able to break out after the weak stretch for IPOs.
Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 03, 2026 14:46 ET (19:46 GMT)
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