Five months after Scale AI’s high-profile founder joined Meta in a blockbuster deal, the startup’s CFO is trying to show that the company remains on a growth trajectory.
“People mischaracterize this deal as some sort of acquihire or some sort of licensing deal, which is not true,” said Dennis Cinelli in his first public interview after joining Scale as CFO in 2022.
Cinelli said Scale’s data business has grown every month since the Meta deal.
The startup world celebrates stories of founders who scratch and claw for years and, finally, become multi-millionaires when the business they built goes public or is acquired. These tales of wealth are common in crypto too—though the path to a big payday is often much shorter.
Case in point: Bam Azizi founded crypto payments firm Mesh in 2020, and this August raised $130 million in a so-called Series B funding round. In the ordinary course of things, capital raised in a Series A or Series B round goes almost entirely to fund a startup’s growth. But in this case, the round included at least $20 million for Azizi himself…Read Full Article
Founders have raised more than $24 billion since the November election for special purpose acquisition companies, with a sizable number of them having ties to Trump's inner circle.
The bulk of the action is in businesses that pair well with "America First" rhetoric, including nuclear and quantum computing, and cryptocurrencies.
SPAC skeptics caution that the investments can be exceedingly risky, with only about 11% of companies that have gone public through a SPAC merger since 2019 trading above their issue price.
A surge of interest in private companies, particularly those related to artificial intelligence, is driving more inquiries and trades on platforms offering accredited investors the chance to invest in pre-IPO names.
Trading volume on the private secondary market run by EquityZen Securities more than doubled in the third quarter versus a year ago, and the total value of buy orders on Rainmaker Securities’ platform rose more than three times from the first quarter.
Investor appetite is soaring for AI-related names, including both AI-native startups and established software as a service firms embedding AI into their offerings, with AI-related firms accounting for about a third of private stock trading.
Sept 18 (Reuters) - Cybersecurity firm Netskope commanded an $8.79 billion valuation as its shares jumped 21% in their Nasdaq debut on Thursday, adding to a string of successful tech IPOs this year.
The Santa Clara, California-based company's shares opened at $23 apiece, well above the $19 offer price. Netskope raised $908.2 million in its IPO by selling 47.8 million shares at the top end of its bumped-up range of $17 to $19 apiece.
The U.S. IPO market is enjoying its strongest momentum in years, with several tech listings, including design software maker Figma (FIG.N), opens new tab, delivering blowout debuts, signaling pent-up investor demand for new issues…Read Full Article
StubHub Holdings Inc. is hoping to excite investors ahead of its initial public offering with its plan to expand its business selling new tickets for sports and other live events.
The company, which is primarily a marketplace for secondary ticket sales, has plenty of demand for its offering that could raise as much as $851 million. The deal, which prices late on Tuesday, is multiple times oversubscribed, Bloomberg News reported earlier on Monday.…Read Full Article
In the lead-up to its public offering, tech unicorn Figma (FIG) priced its shares at $33. When the stock closed its first trading session on July 31, the share price had rocketed up to $115.50 — 250% above where the company priced the stock.
Just two months earlier, stablecoin infrastructure operator Circle Internet Group (CRCL) priced its IPO at $31 and then closed its first day, June 5, at $83.23, marking a more than 165% increase.
Gemini Space Station (GEMI) and Black Rock Coffee Bar (BRCB) will be the latest additions to the New York Stock Exchange as they prepare to begin trading publicly during Friday's session.
These two companies join the ranks of companies that have gone public via an IPO in 2025, which includes Klarna (KLAR), Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR), Chime Financial (CHYM), Figma (FIG), CoreWeave (CRWV), Circle Internet Group (CRCL), Bullish (BLSH), Firefly Aerospace (FLY), and eToro (ETOR).
Happy Friday. This is TheStreet's Stock Market Today for Sept. 12, 2025. You can follow the latest updates on the market here, our daily live blog.
Market Close: See ya Monday!
The U.S. equities market are now closed. The Nasdaq (+0.44%) set its fifth consecutive record and was the best-performing index today, closing at 22,141.10. The S&P 500 (-0.05%), Dow (-0.59%), and Russell 2000 (-0.90%) declined…Read Full Article
Klarna (KLAR) and Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR) are the latest companies to have gone public via IPOs in 2025, joining the ranks of Chime Financial (CHYM), Figma (FIG), CoreWeave (CRWV), and Circle Internet Group (CRCL).
Rainmaker Securities managing director Greg Martin comments on company valuations amid reinvigorated investor enthusiasm for the IPO market.
Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR) is the latest company to have gone public via an IPO in 2025, joining Klarna (KLAR) this week and the broader ranks of Chime Financial (CHYM), Figma (FIG), CoreWeave (CRWV), Circle Internet Group (CRCL), Bullish (BLSH), and Firefly Aerospace (FLY).
Yahoo Finance markets and data editor Jared Blikre tracks the performance of all these newly public companies, comparing their IPOs with their first trading session close. Also hear what Rainmaker Securities managing director Greg Martin has to say about "hyper conservatism" trends in IPO valuations.
Klarna Group, the Swedish buy-now, pay-later service provider, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday after opening at $52 a share.
A total of 34.3 million shares began trading under the ticker KLAR. This makes up roughly 9% of a total 378 million shares outstanding after the initial public offering.
Shares ended the session at $45.82, or 15% above the price of $40 a share Klarna’s underwriters set on Tuesday evening. The fintech raised $1.37 billion from the sale. Based on Wednesday’s closing price, Klarna’s valuation is $17.4 billion...Read Full Article
Klarna Group, the Swedish buy-now, pay-later service provider, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday after opening at $52 a share.
A total of 34.3 million shares began trading under the ticker KLAR. This makes up roughly 9% of a total 378 million shares outstanding after the initial public offering.
Shares ended the session at $45.82, or 15% above the price of $40 a share Klarna’s underwriters set on Tuesday evening. The fintech raised $1.37 billion from the sale. Based on Wednesday’s closing price, Klarna’s valuation is $17.4 billion…Read Full Article
Klarna debuts on the New York Stock Exchange
• Key Insights: Buy now, pay later financier Klarna began trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLAR.
• What's at Stake: Klarna's public offering serves as yet another proof point for the BNPL industry and signals the return of a healthy IPO market.
• Forward Look: Digital banking in the U.S. represents a huge opportunity for the lender, Klarna's Chief Commercial Officer David Sykes told American Banker in an interview…Read Full Article
Buy now, pay later financier Klarna is putting its highly anticipated initial public offering back in motion and cryptocurrency exchange Gemini also said it would go public in a sign of the IPO market's sustained momentum.
Klarna expects to sell more than 34 million shares of its stock priced between $35 and $37 per share, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase and Morgan Stanley serving as joint book-running managers. Gemini plans to sell more than 16 million shares between $17 and $19 per share. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are serving as joint book-running managers of that deal..Read Full Article
Greg Martin sees AMD Inc. (AMD) earnings as the "bellwether" for other A.I. companies, even Nvidia (NVDA). A ramp up in hyperscaler capex gives him confidence that the A.I. company can draw in a stronger revenue stream. CFRA's Angelo Zino makes the case that AMD is setting up for a "bigger 2026 story." The key headwind it faces is China and how chip export restrictions can lead to bleeding on the balance sheet.
IPOs are prismatic.
They’re about the past and the future, about the company that’s going public and the wider market. IPOs are moments of truth—will public market investors, literally, buy what VCs have been backing for years? It’s also an event that tests how people are thinking about the wider IPO market. Are we, after all this time, so back?
On Wednesday, Figma, the design software unicorn led by Dylan Field, completed its initial public offering, raising $1.2 billion in proceeds ($1.4 billion if you include the over-allotement) for the company and some of its early shareholders, signaling strong demand for its shares which will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. Figma seemingly sailed through its investor roadshow, upping its share price from the initial $25 to $28 range to the $33 it ultimately priced at. And after the company’s $20 billion planned merger with Adobe fell apart a year-and-a-half ago, the $19 billion valuation that Figma has fetched in its IPO is a pretty remarkable testament to its potential as a standalone business.
Derek Hernandez, emerging technology senior analyst at PitchBook, says that even compared to successful IPOs of late, Figma is singular, with its year-over-year revenue growth approaching 50%, and its Q1 profitability (Figma’s Q1 net income was $44.9 million)…Read Full Artile
The Figma IPO has plenty of buzz building around it, with the design software company expected to start trading this week.
Activity in the initial public offering (IPO) market is accelerating following a spring freeze. According to Renaissance Capital, there have been 120 IPOs priced this year through July 30, a 46% increase from the year prior.
Total proceeds from this year's filings are down 21% year over year to $18.3 billion.
This year's biggest IPOs include stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group (CRCL) and CoreWeave (CRWV), an artificial intelligence (AI) cloud company, which raised $1.05 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively, in their offerings.
Wall Street will now turn to Figma, a design software company and former Adobe (ADBE) acquisition target, which is set to start trading this week.
"Investor demand for Figma has proven to be incredibly strong, with shares reportedly oversubscribed by more than 30 times," says Greg Martin, managing director at Rainmaker Securities.
This elevated demand for the shares "suggests long-term confidence in Figma and a view that their independence in the wake of the Abode deal collapse was ultimately beneficial, allowing Figma to accelerate their AI innovation while expanding their product line," Martin adds…Read Full Article
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it seems, never sleeps. Neither can his investors.
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, had invested $2 billion in xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company. Separately, The Financial Times reported that xAI was seeking a $200 billion valuation in a new capital raise.
The SpaceX investment likely relates to changes around the time xAI merged with X, Elon Musk's social media company. The $200 billion valuation is likely a separate transaction.
Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, didn't respond to a request for comment. Musk, however, called the capital raise reference by the FT "false," adding xAI has "plenty of capital."…Read Full Article
Stocks of newly-public companies are surging in their first sessions at the fastest pace in three and a half years, enthralling traders and heating up the market for US first-time share sales.
Drone maker Airo Group Holdings Inc. ended Friday with a gain of 140%, a day after raising $60 million in its initial public offering, and coming barely a week after stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group Inc. surged 168.5% immediately following its $1.2 billion IPO.
With conservative cable channel Newsmax Inc.’s wild 735% opening gain in March, following its $75 million offering, three companies raising at least $50 million on US exchanges this year have more than doubled on their first trading day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the most since nine US-listed debutantes managed the feat in 2021’s IPO boom.
These spectacles may be thrilling to watch, but history shows extreme day-one pops rarely reward investors in the long run…Read Full Article