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The IPO Market Is Opening Up. These 14 Companies Could Be Next.
After a prolonged winter, the IPO market in 2025 has finally thawed, with companies from Chime to Figma to CoreWeave launching big debuts in the first eight months of the year. So, who’s next? To help answer that question, we used Crunchbase’s predictive intelligence tools to curate a list of 14 venture-backed companies in sectors ranging from AI to fintech to consumer goods that could be on tap as IPO candidates in the foreseeable future. Some of them are known IPO hopefuls; others, more under-the-radar picks that nonetheless have strong credentials for a public-market launch. Let’s take a closer look. Fintech Stripe There is perhaps no IPO more anticipated than that of payments giant Stripe. And, unsurprisingly, the fintech is “very likely” to go public, according to Crunchbase predictions. However, Stripe seems to be doing so well as a private company that some people speculate it has no reason to take to the public markets. Stripe, which has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Ireland, is not only the most-valuable fintech in the world, it’s one of the most-valuable private companies, period. But instead of going public, it’s thus far been offering early investors and employees liquidity through secondary sales. In February, for example, Stripe announced a tender offer in which investors would buy up shares from current and former employees at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Stripe passed the $1.4 trillion total payment volume threshold in 2024. Says F-Prime: “There are no perfectly reliable sources for Stripe’s revenue, but some sources estimate they surpassed $16B in 2023.” Since its 2010 inception, Stripe has raised more than $9 billion in funding from investors such as General Catalyst, Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures. Whether it finally decides to take the plunge into the public markets remains to be seen, but if it does, there is no doubt its filing will be devoured by media and fintech enthusiasts alike. Airwallex Airwallex, a Singapore-based global payments and financial platform, is also “very likely” to go public, per Crunchbase predictions. CEO Jack Zhang has stated that the plan is to have Airwallex make its public market debut by the end of 2026, although the company is reportedly “not in a rush” to list. Interestingly, Airwallex rejected a $1.2 billion acquisition offer from Stripe in 2018. And that probably wasn’t a bad move. Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia, the Stripe competitor has raised more than $1.2 billion in funding and was valued at over $6.2 billion as of its last raise — a $300 million Series F in May 2025 that included $150 million in secondary share transfers. Investors include Sequoia Capital, HSG, Blackbird Ventures, Hillhouse Investment and Salesforce Ventures 1, among others. In August 2024, CNBC reported that Airwallex had reached an annual revenue run rate of $500 million after seeing major growth in its North American and European businesses. In announcing its Series F, the company projected that it was “on track to hit $1 billion in annualized revenue in 2025, as businesses of all sizes look to expand globally without friction.” That follows its achievement of $720 million in annualized revenue in March, up 90% year over year, according to the company. It touts more than 150,000 customers globally, including Bill, Bird, Brex, Deel, Rippling, Navan, Qantas and ZipHQ. — Mary Ann Azevedo Enterprise tech and AI Cerebras Systems We know that AI chip company Cerebras, founded in 2016 by Andrew Feldman, has been gearing up to go public. The Sunnyvale, California-based company filed with the SEC to go public at the end of 2024. It then delayed its offering due to regulatory scrutiny over its ties to UAE-based G42, which has since been cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The company is considered a “probable” IPO candidate by Crunchbase. In its filing, Cerebras noted its dependence on a single customer, Group 42, a subsidiary of its investor G42, responsible for more than 80% of revenue in 2023 and the first half of 2024. Cerebras has built a larger chip that is 10x faster for AI training and inference compared to leading GPU solutions, according to the company. Its customers include Mistral AI, Perplexity and the Mayo Clinic. Cerebras is reported to be raising $1 billion in funding which could delay its plans to go public. Still, the market conditions are good for an AI chip company. Nvidia has topped $4 trillion in value and Astera Labs, which went public in March 2024 at $36 per share, has doubled its price from mid-July to mid-August to over $180. Databricks Databricks, at the center of AI and data, is a strong candidate to go public in the next year. The San Francisco-based company is one of the 10 most-valuable private companies in the world, with a reported $3 billion in revenue run rate as of Jan. 31, and on track to deliver positive free cash flow. In December, Databricks raised a $10 billion funding, the largest round in 2024, which valued it at $62 billion. The 12-year-old company has also been on a buying spree, notably purchasing AI infrastructure builder MosaicML in 2023, data management service Tabular in 2024, and sql database solution developer Neon in 2025, each at $1 billion or more. Crunchbase indicates it’s a “probable” IPO candidate. — Gené Teare Clay Clay sits at the red-hot intersection of AI and marketing and is a “probable” IPO candidate, per Crunchbase predictions. Its growth metrics and scale seem to support that outlook, with the company projecting $100 million in 2025 revenue — triple its 2024 figure. It has likewise tripled its valuation in just over a year from $500 million to $3.1 billion in a $100 million Series C raise last month. The New York-based startup, founded in 2017, is reportedly nearing profitability. It’s backed by IPO-savvy investors including CapitalG, Meritech Capital Partners and Sequoia Capital, further bolstering its public-market credentials. The company claims to have invented the “GTM (go-to-market) engineering role,” which CEO and co-founder Kareem Amin has described as “the first true AI-native profession.” — Marlize van Romburgh Cybersecurity Ledger Crypto wallet startup Ledger is “very likely” to IPO, according to Crunchbase predictions. That makes sense, as the French startup, founded in 2014, is well-positioned at the intersection of two currently hot industries: cybersecurity and blockchain. Paris-based Ledger offers a hardware wallet to secure crypto private keys. It has raised some $577 million from venture investors including Molten Ventures and Samsung Ventures, per Crunchbase. CEO Pascal Gauthier told European tech publication Sifted in June that Ledger is actively thinking about a U.S. stock market debut, likely within the next three years. It also has plans to expand beyond crypto security into cybersecurity more broadly. While he didn’t disclose revenue figures, Gauthier said Ledger has sold 8 million of its devices to date and estimated that 20% of the world’s crypto assets are protected via the company’s wallets. “Our size is compatible with an IPO,” he said. “That’s a short-medium term vision.” 1Password It’s “probable” that security startup 1Password will go public, according to Crunchbase’s prediction model. That makes sense, given the Toronto-based startup’s disclosed financials. The company was founded in 2005 and bootstrapped for its first 14 years before receiving its first outside investment from Accel in 2019. It’s gone on to raise $920.1 million total from venture investors, per Crunchbase. Its most recent raise was in 2022, when it landed a $6.2 billion valuation in a $620 million Iconiq Growth-led round. While 1Password hasn’t raised since then, it likely hasn’t needed to: Co-CEO David Faugno told CRN in February that the company has been profitable since the get-go and now has more than 150,000 customers, with 75% of its business selling to enterprises. While the company hasn’t made any formal moves toward an IPO, Faugno told CRN that “we do believe that this platform and this company can be a very large, standalone business. And we do believe that public markets are a likely stop on that journey, and an accelerator of that journey.” Tanium Tanium, founded in 2007, is a frequent guest on IPO predictions lists, our own included. That’s likely because the endpoint management startup has raised a whopping $1 billion from private-market investors including Franklin Templeton, Andreessen Horowitz, TPG, Wellington Management and IVP. It has also disclosed big revenue numbers to boot, telling Forbes that ARR topped $700 million in 2024 and that it had free cash flow margins north of 10%, making it profitable on an EBITDA basis. The company’s most recent funding-round valuation is $9 billion, though that dates to 2021. But trading on secondary-market platforms including Forge has reportedly valued the company lower — around $4 billion — more recently. Kirkland, Washington-based Tanium hasn’t disclosed going-public plans, and CEO Dan Streetman — brought on last year to take over from co-founder Orion Hindawi — told Forbes “we feel very comfortable as a private company.” Still, if it were to pursue an IPO, Tanium may see a receptive market following data security platform Rubrik’s successful IPO last year. — Marlize van Romburgh Consumer startups Madison Reed Founded in 2013, hair-color brand Madison Reed has had quite some time to build up a following, and it continues to expand its reach. Launched as an online brand, it also currently sells in brick-and-mortar stores and operates a network of hair color bars. Co-founded and led by Amy Errett, a longtime consumer-focused partner at VC firm True Ventures, the San Francisco-headquartered company has raised over $220 million in equity funding as well as $50 million in debt financing. Crunchbase grades it as a “probable” IPO candidate. Skims Skims, the shapewear brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian in 2019, has expanded its way into a host of product lines including sleepwear and activewear in addition to its core shapewear offerings. Funding has followed. The company has raised more than $700 million in seed and venture investment and attracted a host of well-known backers, including Thrive Capital and Wellington Management. It also has a knack for staying in the news, boosted of late by a controversial sculpting face wrap. Could an IPO be next? Crunchbase predicts that move is “probable.” — Joanna Glasner Quince It’s unusual, to say the least, for a D2C clothing retailer to land on an IPO watch list like this one in the year 2025, but Quince is the exception. The San Francisco-based startup is a “probable” IPO candidate, per Crunchbase, a prediction likely fueled by its reportedly fast revenue growth, back-to-back funding deals, and strong brand appeal among Gen Z and millennials. The company has raised more than $260 million from investors to date, not yet including an in-the-works $200 million Iconiq Capital-led Series D that would reportedly value the company at more than $4.5 billion — double its year-earlier valuation. Quince bucks the trend when it comes to fashion startups, which have seen venture investment fall off precipitously since the peak year of 2023. — Marlize van Romburgh Health/biotech Commure Mountain View, California-based Commure, a provider of AI-enabled software for health systems and clinicians, has raised more than $800 million in venture funding to date, including a $200 million June round led by General Catalyst, per Crunchbase data. The company also touts that its ARR, in the hundreds of millions, has doubled for three consecutive years. Those sound like the kind of metrics that IPO investors like, and Crunchbase says a listing is a probable outcome. Inari Inari is hoping to pioneer technology for seeds that will enable plants to make the most efficient use of land, water and fertilizer. Founded in 2016, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has raised more than $720 million in equity funding to date, including a $144 million January financing. In terms of IPO potential, it helps that the company is employing two hot technologies: AI-powered predictive design and multiplex gene editing. Inari is another probable IPO candidate according to Crunchbase. — Joanna Glasner Defense/spach tech Sierra Space Sierra Space is firmly on the IPO radar. The company, named a “very likely” IPO candidate by Crunchbase, commands more than $3.4 billion in contracts (including with NASA) and has raised $1.7 billion in total venture investment at a $5.3 billion valuation from heavyweights including General Atlantic and BlackRock. The company has several marquee projects advancing, which include its Dream Chaser spaceplane and Orbital Reef commercial station. It also enjoys the benefit of an increasingly bullish market for space and defense startups, which have raised robust venture investment this year. The sector has already seen a successful 2025 IPO in the form of Firefly Aerospace’s August public-market debut — could Sierra be next? — Marlize van Romburgh Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Methodology Crunchbase’s IPO predictions utilize Crunchbase data — including funding and valuation, and milestones such as financial growth, key leadership hires, market share expansion and headcount growth — to forecast the likelihood of a private company launching an IPO, providing a probability score and its supporting evidence. Read more about Crunchbase’s Predictions & Insights and its methodology for IPO predictions here. Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Commonwealth Fusion’s Giant Financing Leads Otherwise Slow Week For Big Deals
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here. Hoping to be the first company to commercialize fusion power, Commonwealth Fusion Systems led the pack by a long shot for funding this week, pulling in $863 million for its latest round. Beyond that deal, however, it was a rather slow week for large startup funding rounds, although we did see some good-sized financings for the fintech, biotech and vertical AI sectors. 1. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, $863M, fusion energy: Devens, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a developer of commercial fusion energy systems, announced that it raised $863 million in what it described as Series B2 financing from a long list of investors including Nvidia’s NVentures. Commonwealth said it is moving closer to being the first in the world to commercialize fusion power. 2. Wugen, $115M, oncology: St. Louis-based Wugen, a developer of CAR-T cell therapies to treat T-cell cancers, picked up $115 million in equity financing led by Fidelity. Seven-year-old Wugen plans to use the financing in part to fund clinical trials. 3. Rain, $58M, fintech: Rain, a developer of infrastructure for stablecoin payments, announced that it secured $58 million in a Series B funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. The raise comes five months after New York-based Rain’s Series A and brings total funding to $88.5 million. 4. Blue Water Autonomy, $50M, autonomous ships: Boston-based Blue Water Autonomy, a startup designing and building unmanned ships for the U.S. Navy, closed on $50 million in Series A funding led by Google’s GV. Blue Water said it plans to use the funding to build and deploy its first long-range, full-sized autonomous ship next year. 5. Assort Health, $50M, health care AI: Assort Health, a San Francisco-based provider of AI patient communication tools for specialty healthcare providers, reportedly raised about $50 million in a Series B round at a valuation of $750 million. 6. OpenLight, $34M, photonics: OpenLight, based in Goleta, California, is a developer of a silicon photonics platform for semiconductor design which landed $34 million in a Series A co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group. 7. (tied) Atomic, $30M, fintech: New York-based Atomic, provider of an embedded investing platform for fintechs and financial institutions, snagged $30 million in a growth round led by Aquiline Capital Partners and Brewer Lane Ventures. 7. (tied) Aurasell, $30M, vertical AI: San Mateo, California-based Aurasell, developer of an AI-native CRM platform, locked up $20 million in seed funding backed by N47, Menlo Ventures and Unusual Ventures. 7. (tied) Leal Therapeutics, $30M, biotech: Leal Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based developer of therapeutics for patients living with neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders, announced a $30 million Series A financing led by SV Health Investors‘ Dementia Discovery Fund. 10. Copper, $28M, appliances: Copper, a developer of appliances with integrated battery storage, scored $28 million in a Series A financing consisting of equity and debt that was led by Prelude Ventures. The Berkeley, California-based startup’s first product offering is a stainless steel range and oven called “Charlie.” Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Aug. 23-29. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.
5 Interesting Startup Deals You May Have Missed In August: Sewing Robots, Rare Disease Advocacy And More
This is a monthly column that runs down five interesting startup funding deals every month that may have flown under the radar. Check out our July entry here. AI was yet again an inescapable theme this month as we looked for interesting startups that landed fresh investment. From a company using AI to help Alzheimer’s patients and their families better manage care, to another promising to streamline clothing production in the U.S. through advanced robotics, startups scooped up cash around a variety of AI-related businesses in August. Sewing robots stitch up new funding Atlanta-based SoftWear Automation — the company behind the Sewbot autonomous sewing robot — this month said it has raised $20 million in a Series B1 round. Its robotic sewing machines use machine vision, AI and machine learning to produce apparel that SoftWear claims is cost-competitive with importing garments to the U.S. from low-wage countries. The company says its robots support local production and allow garments to be made more efficiently, closer to their final destination and with less human labor. Its Sewbots also enable faster manufacturing, it says, meaning clothes are produced more in line with current fashion trends and demand. “SoftWear Automation is helping address some of the key challenges we face across the industry — from speed and flexibility to lowering environmental impact. We’re pleased to support their development and explore how this technology can help us move forward,” said Thomas Børglum Jensen, CFO at Danish fashion company Bestseller, which led the round as a strategic investment through its Invest FWD arm. Current investors including CTW Venture Partners, SRI Capital and MacDonald Ventures also participated in the round. SoftWear has now raised $45.6 million total, per Crunchbase data. Startups that incorporate artificial intelligence into the fashion industry have seen strong investor interest, Crunchbase data shows, raising around $100 million globally per year. Funded companies include those working on more efficient garment manufacturing, and others that aim to help consumers more easily shop for clothing online. Related Crunchbase query: Venture Funding To Fashion-Related AI Startups Better advocacy for rare disease patients A rare disease — one that affects only a small number of people relative to the general population — by definition doesn’t necessarily represent a massive addressable market for companies or health providers. But there are thousands of such diseases. Although each affects 200,000 or fewer Americans, altogether some 30 million people in the country are estimated to live with one of those conditions. For those diagnosed with conditions such as sickle cell disease — which affects around 200,000 Americans and is most prevalent among Black and Hispanic people — accessing the care and information they need can represent a major challenge. With that in mind, San Mateo, California-based Citizen Health this month raised a $30 million Series A. The startup aims to use a personalized “AI advocate” to help folks living with rare diseases better navigate the care and management of those conditions themselves. The company says its platform combines AI with community and longitudinal data “to help patients interpret medical records, track symptoms, learn from peers, manage appointments, and connect to the next best step in their health journey.” Its newest round was led by 8VC 1 , with participation from Transformation Capital and Headline. Citizen Health has raised $44 million since its December 2023 launch, per the company. The startup aims to launch the first version of its AI Advocate tool to select communities this quarter, along with a new product for patient advocacy groups. It says it will use the new capital to expand its AI engineering and product teams. “Today’s patients aren’t waiting — they’re searching, deciding, and expecting more,” Citizen Health CEO and co-founder Farid Vij, said in a statement. “They deserve the same clarity, personalization, and intelligence in healthcare that they get in every other part of their lives.” Notably, Citizen Health is a relaunch of Ciitizen, the startup where Vij and co-founder Nasha Fitter met. Ciitizen had been acquired by genetic testing company Invitae in 2021, then sold off before Invitae filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2024. Delivering better Alzheimer’s care Of course, it’s not just people dealing with rare diseases who might struggle to navigate a complex and costly healthcare system. An estimated 7 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, a figure that’s only slated to grow as the population ages further. At the same time, patients wait an average of 36 months for Alzheimer’s care appointments. New York-based startup Isaac Health sees a gap to provide better preventative care for cognitive decline. The company this month raised $10.5 million in a Flare Capital Partners-led Series A round for its platform, which offers AI screening technologies it says can help detect, diagnose and manage dementia from home. The company says its “predictive machine learning can quickly identify patients with different cognitive and brain health conditions and pair them with a team of specialists that offers center-of-excellence level care, resulting in 73 percent of patients with improved neurocognitive function over the course of six months, and an improvement against cognitive goals in only three weeks for 92 percent of patients.” New investors Industry Ventures and Black Opal Ventures, as well as investors Meridian Street Capital, B Capital and Primetime Partners, participated in the round for Isaac Health, which says it has raised $16.3 million to date. Overall, startups working on both healthcare and AI-related technologies attract strong investor interest, Crunchbase data shows, raising $5 billion globally last year, the highest total since 2021. Through the first half of 2025, such companies raised around $3.9 billion, a slight uptick compared to H1 2024. Related Crunchbase query: Venture Funding To Health And AI Startups Slashing vendor costs “Sorry, our AI says your product is too expensive.” That might just be the conversation many businesses are having soon with their vendors, as companies increasingly turn to AI tools to help them track, manage and even renegotiate expenses and contracts. Providing those tools is New York-based Infinity Loop, which this month raised a $5 million seed round for its AI-powered vendor contract management platform. The company says its platform is designed to replace the methods many enterprise teams use to manage their vendor spend — legacy tools such as spreadsheets and outside consultants — with AI-powered tools that “grade existing and proposed contracts, flag underperforming terms, and recommend specific, data-backed negotiation strategies tailored to each vendor and deal.” Every company using its platform has seen at least 12% in annual savings, according to Infinity Loop. The company’s seed round was led by Glasswing Ventures and TIAA Ventures, with participation from Plug and Play, Restive and unnamed angel investors. Related Crunchbase query: Rounds Raised By Startups Using AI Using AI to sniff out fraud Handling credit card and banking disputes is an increasingly costly part of doing business for banks and credit card companies. To help tackle the problem, New York-based Casap this month closed a $25 million Series A that brings its total funding to $33.6 million, per Crunchbase. The round was led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, SoFi and others. Notably, Casap’s customers are the financial institutions themselves, and its product aims to eliminate what’s known in the industry as “first-party fraud” — that is, when a bank or credit card company’s own customers fraudulently dispute legitimate transactions. Casap said its AI‑powered platform manages the entire dispute process — from intake to chargeback filing to customer communication — which can otherwise take as long as three months. Its AI agents evaluate evidence, forecast outcomes and automate steps such as issuing credits or responding to merchants. The company says it also has a proprietary fraud‑scoring engine that flags sketchy activity before it becomes a problem. “Disputes are one of the most broken and expensive workflows in financial services. What should be a simple resolution often turns into a slow, manual process — frustrating consumers, overloading teams, and bleeding revenue along the way,” Casap CEO and co-founder Shanthi Shanmugam wrote in a blog post announcing the funding. The company says its Series A is the largest investment for a startup catering to the issuer — rather than the consumer — side of the business. With the fresh capital, it plans to grow its engineering, GTM and product teams. Startups at the intersection of financial services and AI raised about $2 billion in venture funding in each of the past two years, Crunchbase data shows. Through the first half of 2025, such startups raised about $1.4 billion, up notably compared to the $907 million raised in H1 2024. Related Crunchbase query: Venture Funding To Financial Services And AI Startups Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Tech IPO Darlings Give Up Some Gains
High-performing public debuts this summer from companies like Figma, Circle and Chime Financial helped drive the narrative that the tech IPO market is back in business. In recent days and weeks, however, shares of many of the most sought-after new market entrants have taken a steep tumble. And while by many metrics valuations still look elevated, the degree has lessened. The most prominent example is Figma. The design software company went public nearly four weeks ago in one of the year’s biggest IPOs, with shares more than tripling in first-day trading. The stock peaked at over $140 per share a day later, setting a market cap of nearly $70 billion. Since then, San Francisco-based Figma has headed lower. Shares were selling for around $72 apiece on Monday, down nearly 50% from their peak, closing the day lower at $70.40. Coreweave, Circle and Chime In a similar vein, one of the year’s first mega-IPOs, CoreWeave, is also down from heights scaled in June. Yet the cloud-based AI infrastructure company is still well above its PO price. Circle has also taken a cut. Shares of the New York-based stablecoin issuer zoomed up 168% during its June 5 market debut. The stock roughly tripled again over the next few weeks, hitting a peak market cap over $60 billion. Since then, the stock has lost close to half its value. It’s not a tragic story arc, given that Circle is still well above its IPO price. But still, it does demonstrate that one can’t expect shares of unprofitable companies to go up forever. Online banking provider Chime Financial, by contrast, had a more modest debut. Its shares rose a solid but not eye-popping 37% in initial trading following its June IPO. Even so, Chime is still down from that level today. A pullback, not a crash These pullbacks don’t look like a reason for alarm yet. For one, the companies are still trading above the levels at which they priced their IPOs, indicating these are share prices insiders consider satisfactory at least. Additionally, most of the early gains look more like momentum trading, since these companies are new and thus don’t have an earnings track record to justify a big rally. Looking ahead, it’s unlikely any companies in the IPO pipeline will change course based on a down period after several buoyant up weeks. If it continues and intensifies, however, we may revise that outlook. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The rise of retail investors in secondaries, and why delayed IPOs will become the norm
Retail investors are increasingly shaping the secondary market. In Q4 2024, platforms like EquityZenreportedthat 86% of total transaction volume came from retail participants—an eye-catching shift as tools like Forge and EquityZen promise broader access to private shares. But does more access mean more opportunity, or more risk? Today onEquity, Rebecca Bellan is joined byJared Carmelof Manhattan Venture Partners to dig into what he calls a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in secondaries, why he’s not crazy about the increase of retail investors, and how secondaries provide a “pressure relief valve” that could keep startups private well past their startup years. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How MVP has worked to “institutionalize” secondaries out of the Wild West of investing.Why “informational asymmetry” makes some secondary offerings a raw deal for retail investors.How a sluggish IPO market is catalyzing a robust secondaries market that creates a liquidity flywheel for VC.And Jared’s prediction that in a few years, the secondaries feedback loop will delay IPOs up to 20 years. How MVP has worked to “institutionalize” secondaries out of the Wild West of investing. Why “informational asymmetry” makes some secondary offerings a raw deal for retail investors. How a sluggish IPO market is catalyzing a robust secondaries market that creates a liquidity flywheel for VC. And Jared’s prediction that in a few years, the secondaries feedback loop will delay IPOs up to 20 years. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You also can follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodeshere.
Exclusive: Insurtech Startup Inclined Raises $8M For Offering That Was ‘Historically Reserved For The Wealthy’
Inclined Technologies, a fintech startup that lends against whole life insurance policies, has raised $8 million in a Series B funding round, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively. HSCM Ventures led the financing, which also included participation from Northwestern Mutual and other new and existing backers. The raise brings San Francisco-based Inclined’s total funding to $31 million. The company did not disclose its valuation, saying only that the Series B was raised “at a premium” to its $16.5 million Series A. In 2020, Strava co-founder Mark Shaw teamed up with Josh Wyss and Graham Gerlach to start Inclined, his third company. He’d previously founded insurance software startup Guidewire Software, which ended up going public in 2012. Shaw joined activity and fitness tracking platform Strava as a co-founder in 2009 to lead engineering as CTO. The goal with Inclined, he said, is to digitize many of the traditional time-intensive operations involved in the process of lending against whole life insurance policies. Shaw concedes that insurance may not be considered among the sexiest of industries, particularly in the age of AI. But in his view, Inclined is able to do something that has historically been reserved for the wealthy: open up the option to borrow against whole life insurance policies to more people. Whole life insurance policies differ from term life in that they accumulate value that is available permanently, rather than just paying for coverage. Shaw, who serves as Inclined’s CTO, likens it to buying versus renting a home. And when whole life policyholders want to access their cash value, they often choose to do so via a loan, rather than withdrawing the money directly, which is less efficient, he explains. This gives banks a way to better participate in the market at scale, according to Shaw. And because banks often have “much lower rates than insurance companies,” he explained, that means borrowers get to borrow at lower interest rates. Plus, their money can be compounded over decades. Inclined’s flagship product is called “iLOC” and is a revolving line of credit collateralized by the cash value accumulated within a whole life insurance policy. It’s offered through advisers of insurance carriers such as Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual and Guardian Life. No recurring interest payments are required, there are no late-payment penalties, and no fees are charged to borrowers, according to Wyss, who serves as the company’s CEO. People “are essentially borrowing from themselves,” he said. Many people access the money they have built up in these policies to do things like make investments, pay for education or fund other large purchases such as real estate. “They can access this liquidity during their lifetime,” Wyss told Crunchbase News. “It’s not just something used after a person dies.” Insurtech funding sees choppy funding Inclined’s funding follows several years of declining venture investment in insurance and insurtech startups but a more recent uptick, Crunchbase data shows. Last year, such startups raised some $4.5 billion globally, down from $6.3 billion in 2023 and $9.5 billion in 2022. In 2021 — the peak year for global venture funding — insurance-related startups raised close to $19 billion worldwide, per Crunchbase data. But through the first half of 2025, those startups have raised nearly $4.3 billion, putting them on pace to top last year and 2023. Inclined’s rapid growth Since Inclined’s founding, more than $1 billion of credit has originated on its platform, its co-founders said. While they declined to reveal hard revenue figures, they told Crunchbase News that the company’s annual recurring revenue is “up more than 50x” since it last raised in September 2022, for a compound annual growth rate of 318%. Because of its B2B2C model, Inclined has a few different types of customers. Over 2,000 insurance professionals recommend and sell its iLOC product to their policyowner customers who want to access the cash they have built up in their policies. It has about 3,500 whole life policyowners who are using the iLOC product. The company makes money primarily through fees paid by its banking partners. When asked why the startup opted to raise less money in its Series B than it did in its Series A, Wyss said the company was “just being judicious” about the amount of capital it needed. “We felt like this was the right amount of capital to get to the next milestones of the company,” he said. “And, partnering with Northwestern Mutual and getting them on the cap table was a big part of this, too.” Inclined plans to use its new capital mostly to “invest in sales,” and grow its engineering team, according to Shaw. Craig Schedler, vice president of venture and corporate development at Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, told Crunchbase News via email that Inclined’s technology platform will help enable its policyowners “to understand and optimize the value of their whole life insurance policies, helping them manage their financial lives and have greater access to the living benefits of their Northwestern Mutual policy.” Related Crunchbase query: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Why More Startups Are Buying Other Startups In 2025
Despite a pickup in IPOs, startup exits and funding are still harder to come by than in years past. Add to that an increasingly competitive landscape for AI startups, and it’s no surprise that we’ve seen an upturn in startups buying other startups this year. The reasons for the rise in startups buying their brethren are varied. In many cases, consolidation is driven by market forces, including a more challenging fundraising environment and more affordable valuations for buyers. For other startups, it’s simply faster to buy another company than try to build out certain technologies themselves. By the numbers In the first half of 2025, there were 427 reported M&A deals globally in which startups bought other startups, according to Crunchbase data. That compares to 362 in the same period last year, representing an 18% increase. For comparison’s sake, in the full years 2021 and 2022, there were more than 1,000 deals in which startups bought other startups, per Crunchbase data. Buyer’s market Michael Mufson, managing partner of investment banking firm Mufson Howe Hunter, believes that we’re seeing more early-stage startups combining forces because the fundraising environment “has become so challenging.” “Venture capital is still tight, and without enough liquidity events to cycle capital back to LPs, VCs are being far more selective,” he told Crunchbase News. “For founders, it’s survival of the fittest — and that means getting creative to build a very tight investment thesis.” In many cases, a merger between two early-stage companies can create a stronger, more compelling narrative for investors, in Mufson’s view. “It may broaden the customer base, consolidate IP, or, increasingly, bring in critical capabilities like AI,” he added. “For startups lacking in AI expertise, acquiring or merging with a team that has that technical depth can help accelerate product development and improve funding prospects in a highly competitive market.” Startup adviser Itay Sagie, owner of Israel-based Sagie Capital Advisors, agrees that the most significant driver of the startup-to-startup M&A uptick is the tightening of venture funding — despite a modest bump in venture funding globally in Q2. “Small scale, startups which are far from being profitable have a hard time raising capital as VCs become more conservative, so they see M&A as the most logical option,” he told Crunchbase News in an email interview. Another driver, Sagie believes, is that valuations appear to be “stabilizing at reasonable ARR multiplier ranges.” This allows for larger startups that raised large rounds in 2021 at 40x-70x ARR valuations to use cash reserves to acquire smaller startups at reasonable valuations. “So rather than facing a down round, they’re deploying that capital toward acquiring startups, especially ones that offer one of the three “Ts: complementary tech, traction, or talent,” Sagie added. On the other side of the spectrum, the larger startups who are more financially sustainable with impressive unit economics and growth KPIs are even more attractive as startup buyers, in Sagie’s view, “as their equity is a more valid asset versus an overpriced, cash burning unicorn.” Purchases include larger deals Some of the deals this year have also been high-dollar transactions. And unsurprisingly, some of the larger deals involved AI companies. Not all large M&A deals involved AI companies. Other notable startup purchases of peers this year include: Also, many of the major acquirers raised large rounds before making their buys — with OpenAI in early April announcing a staggering $40 billion investment led by SoftBank. That deal marked the biggest venture investment ever. Last December, Databricks raised $10 billion at a $62 billion valuation, marking one of the largest venture capital raises of 2024 and one of the largest on record. Asset purchases and acquihires Lindsey S. Mignano, co-founder of SSM Law, notes an interesting trend she’s seeing: more asset acquisitions plus acquihires. This is where larger technology companies are buying the assets (think IP portfolio) of an early-stage company and taking one to three people from the founding team to integrate the technology and transition customer relationships. SSM Law generally represents tech startups being acquired by larger, more established startups who have received more venture capital financing. An example of this would be an AI company that received a seed or Series A funding being acquired by a Series C or D company. “The seller’s motivation to sell is often economic or market related — i.e., this company could not raise another round of venture capital or simply saw the writing on the wall that a big tech company was going to surpass them on ‘go-to-market’ due to strategic acquisitions or consolidations,” she told Crunchbase News in an interview. The buyer’s motivation to buy is likewise economic, Mignano notes. It’s typically cheaper to buy the technology than build it, and cheaper “to buy the team with a six-month golden handcuff earnout than recruiting.” But it’s also based on a rush to market, most particularly in the extremely competitive AI field. “For AI companies, the buyer has immediate access to proprietary model architectures, inference platforms or edge-device integrations without the spend associated with AI training,” she said. “The buyer gets to immediately procure specialized datasets or fine-tuned models from a seller that effectively block out the competition in verticals with especially clunky sales cycles such as law, government or hospitals.” In general, Mignano believes that “buyers are in a really good place right now.” Related Crunchbase query: Related Reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Analysis: Venture-Backed IPOs Of 2025 Have Done Well Post-Debut; Now It’s Figma’s Turn
The U.S. tech IPO scene hasn’t exactly been busy this year. But for those who have made their debuts, the market reception has been exceptionally positive overall. That could be a helpful tailwind for Figma, which priced its IPO late Wednesday at $33 per share, slightly above the projected range. Shares of the design software provider will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FIG. If Figma follows in the footsteps of other big IPOs this year, we can expect shares to go up from there. That, at least, was the pattern we found in a Crunchbase review of venture-backed companies that went public on U.S. exchanges this year. Among the nine largest offerings, all were up from where they priced their IPOs. Circle leads Circle Internet Group is the top performer by a long shot. The New York-based stablecoin provider, currently valued above $40 billion, has seen the value of its shares rise more than 5x following its early June IPO. The stupendous performance has helped spur a raft of other newcomers looking to test their luck on public markets. In the past few weeks, BitGo, a provider of secure wallets for digital assets, and Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, both submitted confidential draft registrations to go public. Also this month, digital asset platform Bullish filed publicly for its IPO. It also likely helped that Circle’s debut coincided with a sharp rise in crypto values, with Bitcoin recently near its all-time high at more than $118,000. CoreWeave, Chime and others still up While Circle is the biggest gainer, AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave is still the most valuable venture-backed company to go public this year, with a recent market cap around $52 billion. Shares of the New Jersey company have also more than doubled since its April IPO. Digital banking provider Chime, the next-largest offering, is also up a bit, albeit not so dramatically. And while a market cap over $12 billion certainly sounds like a lot, it’s still far below the $25 billion peak valuation Chime garnered several years ago. Several mid-sized IPOs have also posted big gains. Metsera, a developer of therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases, is trading at roughly double the level it priced shares for its January IPO. And shares of MNTN, a targeted TV advertising platform, are also up sharply from the initial offering price in May. Up next: More huge offerings Even with some large offerings in the mix, the pace of venture-backed IPOs so far this year has been on the slow side. Granted, it’s a pickup from the latter part of 2024, which was even slower. But to really be able to declare the IPO market is back in a big way, we’ll need to see more large, successful offerings. Fortunately, those are likely on tap. Most anticipated of all is probably design software developer Figma, which recently boosted the proposed price range for its upcoming IPO, raising its expected initial valuation to up to $18.8 billion. Another smaller but nonetheless successful debut came to fruition on Wednesday as Ambiq Micro, a maker of low-power chips for AI computing, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares closed up 61% in first-day trading. Given that preparing for an IPO is a notoriously demanding process, it remains to be seen how many of today’s eligible unicorns will add themselves to the public offering pipeline. If things continue in the current fashion, though, many of those who opted to stay private may be regretting their decision. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman