Tech industry insiders share their picks for the next startups who will ride the IPO wave after Figma’s blockbuster debut

·IPOs industry insiders their picks for the next startups who will ride the IPO wave after Figma’s blockbuster debutBy Alexandra SternlichtBy Alexandra Sternlicht Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFigma’s sensational IPO last week resurrected longstanding debates IPO pricing and first day pops—an unsurprising reaction to the newly listed stock’s 333% surge in its first days of trading

As investors dissect the offering (and as Figma’s stock settles back a bit, falling 27% on Monday), other key questions have emerged: Will Figma’s debut entice other startups to jump into the fray, bringing an end to the industry’s IPO drought? And if so, who’s next? There’s a long list of late-stage VC-backed companies with strong customer bases that Wall Street investment bankers would love to take public

Many of these multi-billion dollar companies, including Databricks, Klarna, Stripe, and SpaceX, have been subjects of IPO speculation for years

Those companies will ly continue to be in the spotlight, but in conversations I had with several investors ing Figma’s debut, other names came up as more ly to IPO sooner including Canva, Revolut, Midjourney, Motive, and Anduril. “Having positive IPOs is a good signal for everybody,” says Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner Ventures, whose portfolio company Chime recently went public and experienced a 37% pop in stock price on its first day of trading. (Forerunner also has investments in public company Hims & Hers and late stage including Oura.) “I believe we should revisit this idea: an IPO is the Series A of being in the public market–and having that really be a motivator to people’s willingness, and maybe even eagerness to go public.” (As if on cue, HeartFlow, a medical nology company, filed an S-1 for its IPO at a $1.3 billion valuation on August 1)

This, he says, is a factor of policy uncertainties that translate to funding headwinds as well as the overfunding that occurred in 2021 that continues to stymie venture capital. “Figma hopefully starts to break the dam, but it’s been a pretty slow quarter,” he says

He says that investors would prefer companies to generate a minimum of $200 million in revenue that grows at high rates and prioritize positive free cash flow over fitability

Design collaboration company Canva has raised $589 million over 18 rounds at a $32 billion valuation, higher than that of Figma’s at the time of its IPO. “Canva is a big winner when it comes to what happened yesterday with Figma,” says Jason Shuman, an investor at Primary Ventures

Shuman, who is not an investor in Canva, points to Canva’s $3 billion annual revenue and 35% year-over-year growth as signs of its ’ durability

Canva, which was recently valued at $37 billion during a buy back, did not respond to Fortune’s request for

He looks at fin NuBank, which is up around 13% from its early 2025 IPO and thinks that Revolut, which has a very similar model, could copycat

Revolut told Fortune in a statement: “our focus is not on if or when we IPO, but on continuing to expand the , building new ducts, and viding better and cheaper services to serve our growing global customer base.” Another potential IPO candidate in the near-future is chipmaker Cerebras, says Primary’s Shuman, who invests in vertical AI, B2B, SMB and finance and defense companies but has no stake in Cerebras or Revolut. (Cerebras filed an S-1 in September 2024 but its IPO was delayed by regulators concerned a $335 million investment by UAE-based G42

Now, it’s been ed by regulators for a public market listing, but the company has held off on an IPO as it fundraises $1 billion, reports The Information.) Many companies, including the largest and hottest private company OpenAI (which just nabbed a $300 billion valuation, per the New York Times), have significant incentives to remain private

Yet, the fact that behemoths OpenAI, Stripe ($91 billion valuation) and SpaceX ($400 billion valuation) are private may even be a hidden cost for the public market. “I’m going to get philosophical,” says Forerunner’s Green. “Part of the public market was created so the broader population could participate in the economy and in the growth of the economy; it wasn’t meant to sit in a few people’s hands.” One behemoth may be entering the stock market limelight

Anduril, the defense company that nabbed a $30.5 billion valuation on its Series G, has incentives to remain private due to the nature of its

In addition to Anduril’s CEO announcing it will “definitely” become publicly traded, its value position is core to Trump Administration priorities in security and defense, which could make it a hot pick for investors, Stanford reasons. “Other than that,” he says the list of potential IPO candidates these days is long: “There’s bably 300 other companies that it could be.”Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in America