The AI IPO Bubble Looms

Not a day goes by that we don’t hear news about OpenAI. It’s the darling of the AI revolution, like Uber was for transportation, Facebook for social media, and Rivian for electric cars.

But CEO Sam Altman has said he doesn’t see the company ever going public.

So, what AI startups will IPO first? And will the early AI IPOs set off the next frenzy that lures retail investors at high prices, only to pop in 2022 fintech fashion?

Cerebras

​Cerebras​ may be the perfect AI startup to kick off the euphoria. It’s a cloud-native chipmaker whose hardware is designed to train massive AI models. Nvidia is surfing these waves right now.

Bloomberg reported in January that the company plans to raise private funds AND IPO in 2024. They’ve hired Citi as lead bookrunner, but we haven’t heard much else since early April.

However, X followers @RAWAGENT7 and @millz192 pointed out this week that Forge Global and Pitchbook show that Cerebras has filed confidentially for an IPO. Still waiting for a confirmation.

It’s now one of the most active pre-IPO startups on the ​Hiive​* marketplace (sign up to view hundreds more charts like this for free).

If Cerebras indeed IPOs in 2024, it may kick off the next wave of overpriced, overhyped IPOs. That doesn’t mean we can’t make money by participating, but it could be painful for buy-and-holders.

CoreWeave

Next in line could be ​CoreWeave​. This company provides small AI startups cloud access to Nvidia’s HGX H100 chips which provide superior GPU processing for training large language models (LLMs). It’s another pickax in the AI gold rush.

Just this May, CoreWeave:

• Raised a $1.1 billion Series C at a $19 billion valuation
• Secured $7.5 billion in debt from Blackstone, Coatue, and Carlyle
• Leaked it was making preparations for an IPO in the first half of 2025

Investors include Fidelity, JPMorgan, Zoom Ventures, and Nvidia.

The Next Wave

It’s starting to look like AI companies will have an upcoming IPO window, similar to how the 2020-2021 IPO window roared but then abruptly shattered.

AI startups with aspirations to become public companies need to prepare now or risk becoming like one of the dozens of startups that planned to IPO in 2022 but are still private because they missed the opportunity.

Who else may join?

• Databricks
• Anthropic
• Cohere
• Figure AI
• Perplexity
• xAI
• Scale AI
• Hugging Face
• Mistral AI

One thing that could hold these companies back is the robust private markets. Pre-IPO liquidity has improved for early employees of large companies like Stripe, SpaceX, and even OpenAI. So they all have the option to stay private.

However, when IPOs start jumping 50% to 100%, the easy money will be irresistible.

How will retail investors profit? Get into these companies now before the IPOs. Participate in the IPOs where you can get access. But don’t be afraid to take profits if valuations go wild.

Here’s a ​list of platforms​ where you can invest today. You already know my ​favorite​*.

Radar

I write one or two of these deep dives every week and update previous articles when significant news hits the wires.

Here are the latest:

• ​Snyk​ — This cybersecurity company is reportedly preparing for an IPO
• ​Kraken​ — Cryptocurrency platform for active traders
• ​Klarna​ — The buy-now-pay-later fintech is “definitely ready” for a Q1 2025 IPO, says CEO

Conclusion

That’s all for this edition of the Access IPOs Newsletter. Reply to this email if you have any feedback. Consider joining our ​private Facebook Group​ and follow ​Access IPOs​ on X.

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Thanks for reading.

Craig Stephens

Founder – Access IPOs

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