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Jeremy Bowman has positions in CoreWeave, Figma, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Figma, Nvidia, and Omada Health. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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If you're hunting for high-growth stocks, initial public offerings (IPOs) are one of the best places to look. Some of the most valuable companies in the world were once freshly minted public offerings, and investors who spotted them early made a fortune.
But not every IPO is a winner. Volatility is high in IPO stocks, track records are short, and enthusiasm can send valuations to irrational heights fast. Here's what's worth your attention right now.
After years under the umbrella of eBay and then Viagogo, a ticket exchange platform, StubHub went public in September 2025.
Stubhub is not a new company by any means, having been founded in 2000 in the dot-com boom. While its growth has slowed over the years, the company has an attractive business model, thanks to the network effects endemic in secondary ticketing platforms.
It's the largest secondary ticket marketplace in the world, though it trails Ticketmaster as the largest overall ticketing platform.
After a boost from Taylor Swift's Eras tour, Stubhub experienced a downshift in revenue growth in 2025. It finished 2025 with gross merchandise sales (GMS) of 6%, or 18% excluding the impact of the Eras tour. Revenue was down 1.5% to $1.75 billion, showing its take rate declined.
The company has historically been profitable on a cash basis, but it has $1.5 billion in debt, much of which came from its acquisition by Viagogo.
Its first few months as a public company have been a disappointment, with the stock down more than 50% from its $23.50 IPO price as of March 2026.
Once a company files its S-1 prospectus with the SEC, you can dig into its actual finances. Here's what to focus on:
One more thing worth knowing: IPO stocks are subject to lockup periods -- typically six months -- that prevent insiders from selling. When those expire, the stock can drop if insiders rush for the exits.
There are a number of pros and cons to investing in IPO stocks. Let's review some of the big ones.
Pros:
Cons:
In general, IPOs offer substantial potential upside and occasionally produce big winners, but most debuts do not perform as well as the S&P 500, whose stocks have proven their mettle on their way to earning their membership in the index.
If you are buying an IPO stock that's already publicly traded, the tax implications are the same that they would be for any stock.
You'll want to consider the holding period as holding the stock for less than a year will be considered short-term capital gains, which is treated like ordinary income. Long-term capital gains, on the other hand, is charged at a lower rate, though it can be as high as 20%, depending on your marginal tax bracket.
For insiders, including employees and early investors, you'll want to consider the impact on restricted stock units (RSUs), which often have a default 22% tax withholding, and IPOs can cause RSUs to vest, meaning they become taxable as ordinary income immediately.
If you own stock options ahead of an IPO, exercising them before the stock goes public can work to your advantage to save on taxes.
These companies haven't gone public yet, but they're among the most hyped offerings in years.
OpenAI is one of the most anticipated IPOs in Wall Street history as the generative AI leader was valued at $730 billion pre-money in its most recent funding round in Feb. 2026 after raising $110 billion from Softbank, Amazon, and Nvidia.
While it's been easy for the company to raise money in the private markets, the ChatGPT creator could go public as soon as this year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is preparing for a public offering in the fourth quarter of 2026, aiming to beat rival Anthropic to market. The company recently restructured its business as a for-profit enterprise and defined the stakes that investors like Microsoft hold in the company.
Not to be outdone, Anthropic, the other leading AI company and maker of the Claude chatbot, is also reportedly planning its own IPO.
The start-up was valued at $350 billion in its last funding round, and, as of Feb. 2026, was close to raising $20 billion in another round.
In December, Financial Times reported that Anthropic had hired the law firm Wilson Sonsini to prepare for an IPO that could happen as early as 2026.
Anthropic has gotten a lot of attention for its Claude Code tool, which has driven a sell-off in software stocks, as some investors believe it could replace a lot of traditional coding and software.
SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace company, is also on the list of high-profile companies that could go public this year. Musk himself has confirmed reports that the company intends to go public this year, and an offering could come as soon as June.
The Wall Street Journal said Musk's lieutenants have reached out to index managers to secure earlier inclusion for the company, a strong sign of its intention to go public.
SpaceX also recently merged with xAI, Musk's AI company, presumably in part to beef up its prospects ahead of an IPO.




| Name and ticker | Market cap | Dividend yield | Industry |
|---|---|---|---|
| CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) | $38.5 billion | 0.00% | IT Services |
| Figma (NYSE:FIG) | $15.2 billion | 0.00% | Software |
| Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL) | $24.0 billion | 0.00% | Software |
| Omada Health (NASDAQ:OMDA) | $813.6 million | 0.00% | Healthcare Providers and Services |
| StubHub (NYSE:STUB) | $2.9 billion | 0.00% | Entertainment |
CoreWeave (CRWV +2.01%), a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-focused cloud infrastructure business, had a disappointing IPO, but the stock has surged since then, gaining more than 300% from its IPO price of $40 at one point, though it gave back much of those gains in a November tech sell-off. Fund manager Michael Burry, known for "The Big Short," said AI stocks like CoreWeave were underestimating depreciation for graphics processing units (GPUs), showing the high risk of the company's business model.
CoreWeave's IPO came at the end of March 2025, when concerns about tariffs, weakening consumer sentiment, and a potential slowdown in AI spending weighed on the market. The IPO was undersubscribed, and the offering was priced below its target range. Nvidia (NVDA +2.71%), a major customer, bought into the offering, helping to make it happen.
As confidence in the economy returned, CoreWeave stock soared. The company is delivering skyrocketing growth with revenue up 110% in the fourth quarter, showing soaring demand for the AI computing power it offers. However, CoreWeave is still deeply unprofitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis and has high customer concentration, making it risky. Its business model also requires heavy spending on capital expenditures, buying GPUs that it essentially rents out as computing power to customers, meaning it has considerable debt and high interest expenses.
It's a risky stock, but its growth rate shows it has huge potential. It's also a rare pure-play AI stock.
Figma (FIG +4.57%) is one of the newest companies to go public with its IPO at the end of July.
The stock soared initially as Figma has built a strong business around design software with a stable of top customers, strong top-line growth, GAAP profits on the bottom line, and new AI-powered products.
Prior to going public, Figma was in the news for agreeing to be sold to Adobe for $20 billion. However, regulators broke up the deal, claiming that it was anti-competitive.
Though Figma still competes against Adobe, the company has arguably the leading brand in user experience and user interaction (UX/UI) software, and has a bright future in front of it.
The company is investing aggressively in AI and recently popped after OpenAI touted a Figma integration.
Since surging on its IPO, the stock has faded on concerns about overspending on new products, broader concerns about valuation, and pressure on SaaS stocks due to fears about disruption from AI. In March 2026, the stock was trading near its $33 IPO price with a market cap well below Adobe's buyout offer of $20 billion.
Circle Internet Group (CRCL +9.74%) went public in June with a blazing-hot IPO. After pricing its offering at $31, the stock opened at $69 on its first trading day and jumped 56% over the next two days, though it's since retreated from most of its initial surge.
The demand for Circle's shares indicates strong interest in crypto stocks. There are only a few pure-play crypto stocks on the market, and crypto did well through most of 2025, with Bitcoin (BTC +5.63%) hitting an all-time high before concerns about a bubble and a weakening labor market led to a sell-off in cryptocurrencies.
Circle issues the stablecoin USDC (USDC +0.01%), the biggest dollar-denominated stablecoin after Tether (USDT +0.01%). It earns money on transaction fees and interest on the reserves it holds to back the stablecoin, though that means falling interest rates could eat into profits. It also recently launched Circle Payments Network, which can facilitate cross-border payments in real time.
The rise of prediction markets has also emerged as a key driver for Circle's growth, as Polymarket is run on the USDC coin, and the two companies strengthened their partnership in Feb. 2026 when Circle said it would supply Polymarket with native USDC settlement infrastructure, increasing Circle's role in Polymarket's transactions.
Circle had a modest, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) loss in 2025, with a net loss of $69.5 million on $2.7 billion in revenue, up 64% from 2024.
Another new IPO stock is Omada Health (OMDA +2.42%), a virtual care company known for its focus on chronic conditions like diabetes.
Omada went public on June 6, 2025 raising $150 million. The stock popped on its opening day, gaining 21% from its $19 IPO price.
Combined with the response to the Circle IPO, investor sentiment seemed to indicate strong demand for new issues after a long, cold spell in IPOs.
Omada's revenue rose 53% to $260.2 million in 2025 and reported a net loss of $12.8 million, which was an improvement from a loss of $47.2 million in 2023.
Omada is also seeing strong in membership with members up 55% to 886,000 at the end of the year.