Founded in 2023, the company鈥檚 business model revolves around an annual event, The Enhanced Games, that allows athletes to compete while using enhancements under medical supervision. It plans to make money through competition media and broadcasting rights as well as by offering direct-to-consumer performance medicine products and telehealth services.

In February, Enhanced a Series B round of undisclosed size, co-led by , an investment firm that counts as a partner. The company raised a in early 2024 from backers including .

Under terms of the merger agreement announced today, Enhanced will merge with a blank-check acquirer, , which currently trades on under the ticker symbol APAD. It plans to trade under the ticker EHNA once the deal closes.

The merger agreement sets a $1.2 billion enterprise value for Enhanced and may provide up to $200 million in cash for the company. Enhanced said it also closed a $40 million equity private placement prior to completing the SPAC agreement.

The first Enhanced Games will take place at Resorts World in Las Vegas beginning on May 24, 2026. Enhanced said it expects participation from a number of prominent athletes, with gold medalists, world champions and current world record holders, including sprinter and swimmer .

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鈥� the company that made its name marketing low-priced tiny homes that ship flat and quickly unfold 鈥� is a prime example.

Founded in 2017 by father and son and , the North Las Vegas company attracted huge publicity with the introduction of its first modular home, the Casita. This roughly 360-square-foot structure, equipped with a kitchen and bathroom, and initially advertised for $50,000, attracted a within a couple years.

It did not result in scores of customers going on to own casitas. However, plenty of fans did invest in the company, thanks to a series of heavily marketed crowdfunding campaigns. To date, Boxabl says it has raised over $230 million from over 50,000 investors.

But the plan wasn鈥檛 to stay private forever. Earlier this month, Boxabl a deal to go public on through a merger with publicly traded shell company FG Merger in a transaction that values the company at $3.5 billion.

A look at the numbers

It鈥檚 a large valuation for a company that, in a quarterly financial made this week, notes that 鈥渟ubstantial doubt about the company鈥檚 ability to continue as a going concern is probable.鈥�

It鈥檚 also large for a startup that posted revenue of just $402,000 in the first six months of 2025, (down from $708,000 a year earlier). Boxabl also posted a loss of around $41 million for the first half of this year, up from $34 million in the year-ago period, per the unaudited statement.

While those are strikingly low revenue numbers (and high losses) for any consumer-facing company on track for a public listing, what seems more noteworthy is the low tally of shipments of its prefab homes relative to initial demand.

Boxable says it has manufactured 744 Casitas to date and has completed deliveries of 285 Casitas in six states.

Between July 1, 2025, and Aug. 19, 2025, the company shipped one unit, according to the filing. Boxable said it is 鈥渋n the process of aligning our production levels to match the demand for our products.鈥�

Demand, but not supply

Should Boxabl manage to churn out prefab homes at advertised prices, which have gone up some over the years, it still has potential for plentiful demand. The company says it currently has deposits ranging from $100 to $5,000 from over 9,350 potential customers.

Of course, a deposit doesn鈥檛 guarantee someone will follow through on a purchase, even if the product does become available.

Nor, of course, does a SPAC merger agreement guarantee Boxabl a public listing. If the deal does not close by the end of the year, either Boxable or its SPAC sponsor may terminate the plan, per the merger agreement.

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During the peak of the last bull market, dozens of startups took this quick route to market, merging with publicly traded shell companies, or s, in lieu of a traditional IPO.

Looking back, most of them didn鈥檛 work out so well, in areas from to autonomous driving, and vertical farming 鈥� the list goes on. It was enough to give SPACs a bad name.

Well, maybe not quite enough. Those who thought the SPAC chapter of market history was written and done haven鈥檛 been following recent developments. Over the past few weeks, a new crop of blank-check companies have announced plans to merge with target companies in areas like crypto, autonomous vehicles and nuclear power.

Meet the new SPACs

These aren鈥檛 small deals either.

In the venture-backed startup space, the highest profile deal features , a provider of autonomous trucking technology. Two weeks ago, the Silicon Valley company plans to go public through a merger with a SPAC at a pre-money valuation around $2.5 billion.

Other noteworthy merger announcements in recent weeks include:

• Cancer therapy developer last week that it plans to carry out a merger with a biotech-focused SPAC at a pre-money equity valuation of $1.3 billion.
• , a new venture co-owned by and that is focused on accumulating Bitcoin, will merge with a blank-check acquirer at what it says will be a 鈥減ro-forma enterprise value of $3.6 billion.鈥�
• Two nuclear energy companies also announced SPAC deals. , a developer of micro-modular nuclear reactors, last week that it plans a merger at a $475 million pre-money equity valuation. A few weeks earlier, , a developer of nuclear plants using molten salt reactor technology, a deal at a $925 million pre-money equity value.

Different times

Obviously, much has changed since the last SPAC merger boom. Investors are more skeptical, having been burned before.

鈥淚t won鈥檛 be a repeat of 2021,鈥� said , founder and CEO of , a provider of news and analysis on the space. 鈥淓xpect fewer moonshots and more discipline, both in deal size and execution.鈥�

The field of SPAC sponsors has also narrowed, per Marvin. Those taking blank-check companies to market recently are generally the more seasoned players in the space, with more reputable track records, she said.

In contrast to several years ago, there鈥檚 also a much smaller supply of new technology companies on public markets. With the tech startup IPO market still largely frozen, public investors have limited opportunities to buy stakes in emerging companies in hot growth sectors.

Volatile times, too

Dealmakers are also operating in an unusually volatile market environment, with tariff uncertainty in particular driving wild swings in major indices. Of late, declines have far exceeded gains, with the tech-heavy Composite Index down about 15% from its December high.

Several high-valuation companies on the verge of going public have also hit the pause button in recent weeks. This includes buy now, pay later service and ticketing platform .

In fast-changing market environments, one potential advantage of the SPAC path to market is that it requires less time and prep work for the target company. That means there鈥檚 less risk of prepping for a particular set of conditions, only to see an entirely new variable, like new tariffs, muck up forecasts.

Even so, upstart companies going public today face an investment environment that鈥檚 prone to sharp ups and downs. Moreover, whipsaw effects are intensified for newer players who lack a track record of reasonably predictable earnings and revenue.

And while SPACs sponsors may be doing things a bit differently this time around, it鈥檚 hard to forget that the space is associated with sharp share price swings. And unfortunately, those swings have historically been more down than up.

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recently made waves when it was revealed it would lure two co-founders of generative AI startup away from the company, hire most of its 70-person staff, and license its technology.

The deal 鈥� seemingly framed in a way to get around any regulatory hurdles since it is not officially an acquisition 鈥� once again showed the tech titan鈥檚 insatiable appetite for all things AI.

However, the move was actually just one of several deals the Windows developer and its venture capital arm completed in the past several weeks as it continues investing heavily in the sector.

In late February, Microsoft took part in one of the biggest rounds of the month, investing in AI robotics startup 鈥檚 huge $675 million round at a pre-money valuation of roughly $2 billion. Other big-name investors in the round included 鈥� and .

Just a few days later 鈥� in a deal that went largely underreported 鈥� Microsoft invested about $16 million into Paris-based . The French startup competes with 鈥� which Microsoft obviously knows well 鈥� and , and was valued at about $2 billion late last year.

The two AI deals in a month were the most for Microsoft since last May, per 附近上门 .

Microsoft’s venture arm also joined the AI investing frenzy in recent weeks. In February, the firm took part in rounds for and 鈥� two startups that attempt to ensure companies鈥� generative AI is reliable, secure doing what it is supposed to do.

Then last month, M12 took part in the big $80 million round for Palo Alto, California-based , which is developing a public cloud purpose-built for ML workloads.

The last time M12 took part in two rounds for AI startups in one month before February was in November 2022, per 附近上门 .

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft鈥檚 deal with Inflection AI grabbed most of the clicks the past few weeks and for good reason 鈥� it may have provided a blueprint for big tech to get around antitrust regulations.

However, deals like the Mistral and Foundry rounds continue to show Microsoft鈥檚 edacious desire for AI.

Things that caught our eye and other stuff:

• Of course, Microsoft is far from the only tech company or investing firm looking at AI. Another one that made headlines recently is 鈥檚 . The firm, perhaps most noted for some of its defense tech deals, led last week鈥檚 big $175 million Series C for optical interconnectivity startup . That came just about six weeks after it led 鈥檚 $320 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation. The company offers cloud computing services and hardware for training artificial intelligence software. That鈥檚 big cash from the 2-year-old fund.
• Just a few weeks ago, we talked about how U.S.-based, VC-backed semiconductor startups have not seen a windfall of funding despite the need now that AI has exploded. Well, times may have changed. Semiconductor startups have already raised nearly $700 million this year to date, . Through all of last year, such startups raised only $1.2 billion. This year鈥檚 numbers were greatly helped out by a pair of recent deals 鈥� Israel-based AI chipmaker locked up a $120 million extension of its Series C, and optical interconnectivity startup Celestial AI鈥檚 previously mentioned $175 million Series C.
• The AI craze has even hit the SPAC market. Artificial intelligence startup finally went public after its combination with former IndyCar driver and owner Michael Andretti鈥檚 blank-check firm. The SPAC raised $230 million in its 2022 IPO. However, a large portion of investors redeemed their shares so Zapata did not see all that cash. Per many recent SPAC deals of the past few years, shares of the generative AI and optimization software maker .

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For market watchers, however, the deal was not reminiscent of Trump鈥檚 presidential term so much as the year it ended. That was 2021, the peak of the SPAC boom 鈥� a time when scores of deeply unprofitable companies with scant or nonexistent revenue briefly garnered market caps in the multiple billions.

But unlike , which had a recent market cap around $7.5 billion, hardly any companies that debuted during the boom have held on to high valuations. Many have filed for bankruptcy, shuttered or are worth a tiny fraction of their former highs.

For those in the mood for some deja vu, we took a sampling of five of the biggest, most famous and splashiest market debuts from the peak SPAC era of late 2019 to early 2022. We look at how they performed initially, as well as how they鈥檙e doing lately.

Virgin Galactic

We鈥檒l start with , the pioneering space tourism company also sometimes credited with launching the modern SPAC age.

Tustin, California-based Virgin made its debut in October 2019, at an initial valuation around $1.5 billion. The debut followed a merger with , a blank-check company formed by , the startup investor who later became known as the SPAC king.

Virgin shares soared quite high 鈥� hitting their all-time peak above $60 in early 2021, valuing the company in the tens of billions. Then they fell to Earth. On Wednesday, shares were selling for around $1.40 each.

Lordstown Motors

Electric truck startup made its debut via a SPAC merger in October 2020. About four months later, its market capitalization reportedly of about $5 billion amid enthusiasm around its plans to produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles in a former plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Things went awry after revelations that the company disclosed inaccurate numbers about vehicle pre-orders, leading to the of its CEO and CFO. Less than three years after its debut, Lordtown filed for bankruptcy and was booted from the exchange.

Opendoor

When it went public via SPAC in August 2021, was the most recognized name among a small cohort of real estate 鈥渋-buying鈥� startups that pitched a quick process to sell homes.

Things started on an up note. Its Nasdaq offering, consummated through a merger with another of Palihapitiya鈥檚 blank-check companies, set an around $17 billion.

Opendoor鈥檚 stock shot higher in the following months, hitting a peak in February 2021. Over the next couple years, it proceeded to shed more than 90% of its value.

Most recently, Opendoor shares were selling for around $3 each, giving the company a market cap around $2 billion.

Clover Health

, a Medicare insurance startup which counted , and among its early backers, went via another Palihapitiya-led blank-check company in January 2021. It ended its first day on the market with a value around $7 billion.

The warm market welcome didn鈥檛 last. A critical report by a prominent short-seller weeks later pushed shares lower. Although Clover made a partial rebound, the momentum didn鈥檛 last. Recently, shares have been trading at about 80 cents, giving the company a market cap around $400 million.

Embark Trucks

While it鈥檚 not one of the more famous SPAC flameouts, we鈥檝e long been intrigued by the story of , a developer of autonomous trucking technology, which went from a $5 billion-plus initial public valuation to bust in 16 months.

What鈥檚 particularly striking about Embark鈥檚 case is that from its inception until its closure, it was a pre-revenue company. Thus, its protracted decline was not due to its missing financial projections.

Rather Embark was ostensibly valued for its innovative capabilities and technologies rather than metrics like price-to-sales or revenue growth. Remarkably, in 2021, people were willing to accept that the expertise was worth $5 billion, and a few quarters later determined it worthless.

Relevance of recent history

So what does this portend for Trump Media and its SPAC fortunes? Well, clearly recent history tells us that bubbly SPAC debuts at high revenue multiples don鈥檛 usually turn out well.

Trump Media, of course, could be an exception. Certainly making a multibillion-dollar debut to double-digit gains as a SPAC in this market climate is quite exceptional. It鈥檚 also trading at an exceptionally robust valuation for a company that posted just $3.4 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023.

It remains to be seen, naturally, how long the company can sustain this exceptional run.

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If only startup investors could do the same. But sadly, when it comes to trucks, venture capitalists are basically the opposite of country singers. Almost anytime they start dabbling with pickups and long-haul tractor-trailers, the result seems to be anything but a hit.

The list of failures at the intersection of trucks, trucking and startups is not a short one. Nor is it a cheap one. Failed companies raised billions before breaking down.

A breakdown of breakdowns

One of the largest losses came this month as Seattle-based trucking logistics startup announced it is shutting down, citing a 鈥渕assive freight recession.鈥� Previously, the 8-year-old company had raised more than $800 million in venture funding.

Several venture-backed companies that went public have also had to wind down or file for bankruptcy, including:

• , a startup working on autonomous trucking technology that went public via SPAC in 2021 after raising over $115 million in venture funding. The San Francisco-based company landed an initial public valuation of more than $5 billion, but subsequently things quickly went south. The company announced earlier this year it is winding down operations.
• , a German developer of solar technology for refrigerated trucks, buses, RVs and other vehicles, filed for insolvency (Germany鈥檚 term for bankruptcy) earlier this year. Sono, which went public in 2021, was originally known for its electric car program, but later pivoted to supplying solar tech to other companies.
• , a Michigan-based electric-truck maker, in June and was delisted from shortly afterward. The company went public in late 2020 and at its peak was valued around $5 billion.

Public market of broken dreams

A song titled 鈥溾�� that once topped the country charts obviously wasn鈥檛 written with truck-focused startup investors in mind. Their anthem, at least in the rear view mirror, should probably be 鈥淭ruck No.鈥�

Returns speak for themselves. The list of publicly traded, VC-funded companies tied to trucking that have seen sharp stock declines includes virtually everyone in the space that went public in the past few years. Using , we put together a list of 10 that fit this description and compare their initial public valuations to where they are now.

Overall, it鈥檚 a lot of steep drops. When the 10 companies above first hit the market, they were collectively valued at $125 billion. Today, the combined market cap of the same group is around $28 billion 鈥� representing a 78% decline.

Hot theme + trucks = not a hit

One of the takeaways here is that when you combine trucks with one of the hot startup investment themes of the moment 鈥斅� such as autonomous driving or logistics platforms 鈥� results are often not good.

(For what it鈥檚 worth, the inverse seems to be true of country music. When you combine trucks with another popular theme, such as a broken heart, you get a hit like , about a guy whose girlfriend ditched him for another truck owner.)

Of course, disrupting the trucking space is a lot harder than penning some lyrics about an old Chevy, a task that even can do tolerably well. Even , the most valuable U.S. automaker, is stumbling in its attempts to roll out its electric Cybertruck, with last week that the company “dug its own grave” by taking on a model with tremendous production challenges.

Truck luck

Reading country lyrics, it鈥檚 also immediately obvious how many songwriters have discovered that 鈥渢ruck鈥� rhymes with 鈥渓uck.鈥�

In the case of startup investors, many are hoping for better fortune this time around with recent truck-related investments. While funding has slowed considerably from the 2021 peak, we are still seeing rounds get done. Larger ones include a $35 million June Series B for Madrid-based freight startup and a $34 million Series C this week for South Asia-focused logistics platform .

Looking back at IPO returns however, it鈥檚 also clear that if venture investors wrote songs about truck-related exits, they鈥檇 have to preface 鈥渓uck鈥� with 鈥渙ut of.鈥�

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• Autonomous Trucking Upstart Embark Goes From $5B Valuation To Kaput In 16 Months

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This year, such rigid nomenclatures haven鈥檛 applied. Rather, market debuts have worked out well for some, horribly for others, and sort of 鈥渕eh鈥� for many more. There鈥檚 no obvious hot sector, and early pops can be short-lived.

That was the broad takeaway from a perusal of venture-backed American companies that carried out market debuts this year. While it鈥檚 a small class 鈥� just around 14 at initial valuations of $100 million or more 鈥� their performance is as varied as it gets.

Winners and losers

This includes some big winners as well as losers. In the winner camp, Mediterranean dining chain has done especially well, with a market cap hovering around $5 billion. So has , an online makeup brand valued around $2.4 billion.

On the losing side, meanwhile, an obvious standout is mortgage platform . The New York-based company saw shares nosedive 93% last Thursday in the first day of trading following its with a special-purpose acquisition company.

Several others that completed SPAC mergers this year have also performed poorly. This includes , a commercial lunar lander company; , a developer of industrial blue laser technology; and , a data intelligence provider. All are down more than 90%.

To get a sense of the mixed performance we鈥檝e seen on the new offerings market this year, we listed 14 companies with 2023 debuts below. The list compares initial valuations with recent ones:

Public investors want profits

Post-offering performance sheds some light on what public investors want. Clearly, profitability is a major item on their wish lists. Cava, for instance, just reported its first quarter. Oddity has been profitable for a couple years. And , a provider of solar trackers and software, also makes money and has done well since its February IPO.

The market’s embrace of profitable brands bodes well for the three big offerings coming later this year: , , and .

Of those, Arm is by far the most profitable, with net income of more than half a billion dollars in its most recent fiscal year. The company is eyeing an initial valuation in the range of $60 billion to $70 billion.

Instacart, meanwhile, has managed to turn a profit from its grocery delivery business for five consecutive quarters. And Boston-based Klaviyo, a marketing and data automation startup, boasts both positive net income and sharply growing revenues.

Given the historically slow pace of startup IPOs over the past several quarters, it鈥檚 refreshing to see things picking up again. And while markets might not be ready to embrace the classic, money-losing growth startup, for those operating in the black, the window looks to be opening.

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The figures, from an analysis of The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board, reveal that even as the IPO markets show signs of life, startups eyeing a public-market debut will face intense headwinds.

Companies are getting ready to test the market鈥檚 interest in new technology listings, as evidenced by IPO filing on Monday and 鈥檚 .

鈥淥ur entire ecosystem is based upon the flywheel of liquidity,鈥� said , managing partner at Chicago-based growth investor , which counts a number of late-stage unicorns in its portfolio, including , , and .

The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board tracks U.S. companies that went public in recent years at or above that threshold value. Our analysis of the billion-dollar exit market year over year highlights how the market has changed, and shows many of those companies are now trading well below their IPO price 鈥� sometimes drastically so.

U.S. billion-dollar exits

An analysis of data shows that in the peak market of 2021, there were 182 billion-dollar private companies that listed on the public markets in the U.S., that鈥檚 compared to 51 companies debuting a year earlier in 2020.

Billion-dollar SPAC listings caught up with traditional IPOs in 2021, when there were 93 IPOs and 83 blank-check deals. A year earlier, traditional IPOs dominated with 34 initial public offerings, compared to 16 SPACs.

Exits in 2021 peaked across all exit types above $1 billion, although billion-dollar M&A counts were comparable to 2020.

In the last 18 months, very few venture-backed companies have exited above $1 billion, unless you count SPAC listings. SPACs again dominated in 2022, which in part reflects dealmaking that was set up in 2021.

SPACs have fallen in 2023, with just four such deals so far this year.

鈥楻ewarding safety鈥�

The public markets have but the increase has concentrated in the leading technology companies. The rise hasn鈥檛 carried through, however, for many newer tech listings such as , and .

鈥淚 think that public market investors are rewarding safety,鈥� said Aschebrook. 鈥淚t is an easier decision to allocate capital to a massive business like a or .鈥�

The three most highly valued companies in the public markets that went public in 2021 are , and Roblox. Each is down significantly from its IPO price.

Of the companies that went public in 2021 and are still public companies, 45%聽 are worth less than $500 million, an analysis of the Exits Board shows.

Roughly 13% are worth more than $500 million but less than $1 billion. And 55 companies, or 32%, are valued at or above $1 billion but less than $5 billion.

Only 16 companies, around 9%, are worth $5 billion or more.

鈥楴ew reality鈥�

About 50% of the 2020 listings now have market caps below $1 billion.

For the 2022 listings, a higher proportion 鈥� 78% 鈥� are valued below $1 billion.

For a period in 2022, the overall stock market was dipping around 1%-2% per day, but some of the newer tech listings were declining much more precipitously 鈥� sometimes plummeting as much as 20% in a single trading day, noted, a partner at law firm who advises technology and life sciences companies planning to list on the public markets.

The management teams and boards at some of those companies felt at the time that their companies were being undervalued by the market, he said.

鈥淚n 2023, I think people have adjusted to a new reality, and they sort of now understand where the market is valuing them.鈥�

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Methodology

The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board includes exits by U.S. venture-backed companies valued at $1 billion or more, starting in 2020.

Companies are included on this list based on their IPO value or M&A deal price. After exiting, a company鈥檚 value could fall below $1 billion or a company could be delisted. We still keep the company on this list based on the date and its value upon going public. Should a planned merger be canceled, the deal will be removed from this list.

We only include a company鈥檚 first exit. For example, was acquired in 2018 by for $8 billion. Its subsequent IPO in January 2021 is not included on this list as the company had already exited.

All funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. 附近上门 converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to 附近上门 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

So far this year, several AI-focused companies have announced tie-ups with SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies. Planned mergers span sectors including education, diagnostics and data management.

A few examples:

• , a training provider which describes its focus as 鈥淎I-powered learning automation,鈥� in late April that it plans to list on at an initial valuation of around $1.4 billion through a merger with shell company Arrowroot Acquisition Corp.
• , which uses artificial intelligence to predict how wounds will heal,聽 last month that it is going public via a merger with a SPAC, Rosecliff Acquisition Corp I. The deal sets an enterprise value of around $170 million for the Dallas- and London-based company.
• , a Redmond, Washington-based developer of聽 an AI-driven video, sensor and data management platform, in March that it is going public through an acquisition by shell company BYTE Acquisition Corp. at a valuation of around $290 million.

In addition, there are some AI-affiliated blank-check companies that have yet to identify an acquisition target.

The search continues

In this category, the most closely watched is , a $450 million SPAC that lists co-founder and CEO as its chief executive. AltC went public in July 2021, with plans to identify an acquisition target within two years. Unless it gets an extension, that time is nearly up.

This week, in a quarterly report, AltC said it 鈥渋ntends to complete a business combination before the mandatory liquidation date.鈥� Currently, the liquidation date is July 12, but AltC said it could be extended to Oct. 12 with a letter of intent or agreement for a merger.

AltC hasn鈥檛 specified that it is looking for an artificial intelligence company to take public. However, Altman鈥檚 prominence in the space makes it safe to assume the SPAC is at least looking at AI startups.

Yet even as AI buzz intensifies, not every SPAC with ambitions in the space has brought their intentions to fruition. A recent case in point is ., a blank-check company that went public in October 2021 with a plan to acquire a life science company using artificial intelligence for drug discovery. Three weeks ago, it announced plans to liquidate its shares, after failing to consummate a business combination.

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Illustration:

The outlook for tech IPOs isn’t much livelier for the second half of this year either, with interest rates at their highest in 16 years and lackluster performance from last year’s IPO class further dampening enthusiasm for new public listings.

• See also: The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board

However, there is a long list of high-growth companies that missed the 2021 IPO window and are waiting in the wings for the market to turn more favorable. If some of those companies decide to go public, they could help thaw the IPO pipeline.

A large number of companies filed S-1 forms 鈥� the regulatory paperwork signaling an intent to go public 鈥� in 2021 and 2022, noted of IPO law firm in an email to 附近上门 News. While not all of those companies are ready to go public right now, many have already made it through the 鈥檚 review process and are standing by for market stability, said Freese.

IPO headwinds

But the performance of last year’s IPO class and the public markets this year are significant headwinds.

While the spin-off of 鈥檚 consumer health division, 鈥� valued at $50 billion at the end of its first-day of trading on the earlier this month 鈥斅爄s a potential signal of a market thaw, it鈥檚 not necessarily a good predictor of how venture-backed tech IPOs will be received on the public markets. That鈥檚 because in contrast to loss-leading, high-growth tech companies, Kenvue is a well-established, profitable company that owns household brand names including , , and .

So far in 2023, only two U.S. venture-backed companies 鈥斅� and , both SPAC mergers 鈥� have listed above $1 billion on the public markets, and both are down more than 40% since going public.

That鈥檚 according to an analysis of The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board, a list of U.S. venture-backed companies鈥� with first exits valued at $1 billion or more.

How the class of 2022 performed

Tech stocks overall in 2022.

New listings fared even worse. Of the 29 U.S.-based venture-backed companies that went public at $1 billion or more last year, over two-thirds are trading more than 80%聽 below their listing price.1

Three of the companies 鈥�, and 鈥斅爓ent public via a traditional IPO, an illustration of how tepid the reception for tech stocks has been. The majority 鈥� 25 companies 鈥斅爓ere SPAC listings. Cannabis product supplier was the single direct listing.

However, six of the companies are down less than 25% from the price at listing which include the three companies that went public via a traditional IPO.

The single company of this batch that is well above its listing price is biotech company Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, which develops solutions for Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.

Other listings currently valued above $1 billion include semiconductor company for 5G wireless Credo Semiconductor, electric motorcycle company , gene editing biotech company Prime Medicine, and small modular power company . These four companies are flat or down less than 25%.

Down a lot

The most highly valued listing of the 2022 cohort was New York-based , a B2B service that uses AI to assess creditworthiness for loan applications for its partners. It went public via a SPAC merger that valued it at $8.5 billion. The business is now worth less than a tenth of that value, at $637 million, as of May 11, 2023.

The next most highly valued IPO was blockchain infrastructure provider , valued at $4.3 billion in a SPAC merger. As of this writing the company is valued at $129 million less than one-thirtieth of that value.

And neobank , which supports its customers with no overdraft fees and access to early paychecks, was valued at $4 billion on its SPAC merger and is worth around $55 million.

Of the companies that raise the most in funding, peer-to-peer car sharing company stands out. It raised $541 million and is valued at $32 million. And short-term rental company raised $529 million and is now worth $91 million.

Looking forward

We will start to see some activity by the fourth quarter of this year, predicts , founder of IPO advisory firm .

鈥淢any raised significant funds in 2020 and 2021, but they are using that cash and will likely be more comfortable adding to the treasury as the current funds are used in growing the business,鈥� she said. And of private funding, 鈥渢he free-flowing sources of funds so available in previous years, have dried up.鈥�

That said, Buyer notes that IPO hopefuls will need to temper their expectations: She predicts that the lofty public multiples we saw in 2021 aren鈥檛 coming back soon, if ever.

Two things need to come together for companies to go public, Buyer said.聽 First, 鈥渢he bid-ask spread needs to narrow,鈥� which means IPOs will need to be valued rationally 鈥� perhaps smaller with lower valuations than these companies previously aspired to.聽 If companies grow according to their projections, they can always raise again later, at higher values.

Second, companies will also 鈥渘eed some comfort on the macro environment before offering a financial outlook,鈥� Buyer said. With the current recession uncertainty it is difficult for companies to forecast revenue in the coming quarters and years.

Companies that missed the 2021 IPO window include , , , and to name a few, all founded over a decade ago.

The general consensus is the markets will likely open up in 2024, said Freese. But he agrees we could see more activity in the second half of 2023.

Either way, it will be interesting to see who is ready to test the markets and what a rational valuation could look like.

Related reading

• The Biggest Startup IPOs Of The Past 10 Years Are All Below Their First-Day Price
• The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board
• The 附近上门 附近上门
• A Bunch Of AI-Related Companies Are Going Public Via SPAC

Methodology

We include public debuts in 2022 for U.S. venture-backed companies valued at $1 billion or more at the IPO price. We only include a company on its first exit.

Public market valuations for these companies were assessed on May 11, 2023.

• Reach out to gene@crunchbase.com should a company be missing from The 附近上门 Billion-Dollar Exits Board.

Illustration: Dom Guzman