Is Anthropic the IPO market’s last hope for 2026? The clock is ticking

Morgan Chittum here.

More bad news in the IPO market this week.

On Monday, Chinese manufacturer Kepuni Holdings withdrew plans for a Nasdaq listing that had been expected to raise $15 million.

A day later, Gravitics Holdings slashed its deal size by a whopping 60% ahead of the space-system developer’s $50 million IPO.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Elice Group plunged 32% on its first day of trading due to jitters about AI-related stocks.

According to Dealogic data, it was the country’s worst-ever debut for a company that raised more than $100 million.

Sure, these are small deals in the grand scheme of 2026.

SpaceX had a record-breaking $75 billion public offering in June.

But they add to a string of recent disappointments. (Let’s not forget when Oura, the smart-ring maker behind one of the season’s most anticipated IPOs, shelved plans just hours before pricing shares in September.) The problem, according to Jay Ritter, director of the University of Florida’s IPO Initiative, has come down to valuations.

“Some of those companies have pulled their IPOs, rather than accepting a less optimistic valuation than they had hoped to get,” Ritter, known as “Mr.

IPO,” told me.

“You’re just asking too much.

It’s not that you’ve got a bad business model.

It’s a question of price.” So, what’s it going to take to reignite the IPO market in 2026? After all, the first six months of the year were great in terms of deal proceeds at roughly $137 billion , partly thanks to SpaceX.