No summer slowdown for IPOs

Even as most of Wall Street is taking its unofficial summer holiday, the tech IPO market is unseasonably busy. Several new offerings have already been filed, with even more prospectuses getting their final revisions and updates. This fall is looking to be one of the most active periods for IPOs in recent years.

Already this week, tech companies have laid out plans for a series of offerings that, collectively, will create tens of billions of dollars in market value.

• Sumo Logic revealed its S-1, looking to capitalize on two markets that have been richly rewarded by investors, monitoring and information security. 451 Research clients can see our full report on Sumo Logic's proposed offering, including projected valuation.
• Snowflake Computing, which already has a $12bn valuation in the private market, will secure a valuation several times richer than that when it comes public in the next month or so. 451 Research will have a full report on Snowflake's IPO on our site later today.
• Asana will test out the direct listing method of selling shares to the public, as the software collaboration vendor looks to spur growth as employees increasingly work from home during the pandemic. 451 Research will have a full report on Asana's offering on our site later today.
• Other notable just-filed S1s include DevOps startup JFrog and videogame technology provider Unity.

Yet no one really saw this late-2020 surge coming. And that was true even before the COVID-19 outbreak and associated economic recession cratered business. Last December, when we surveyed investment bankers – some of whom are currently occupied drafting prospectuses for their clients – they forecast that the number of tech IPOs in 2020 would basically flatline compared with last year.

Bankers' views on the IPO market went from decidedly neutral to historically bearish when we surveyed them four months later, during the depths of the lockdown. In our mid-April Flash Survey: Tech Investment Banking Outlook, respondents had basically written off any offerings. Nine of 10 senior investment bankers told us they would be doing less IPO work for the remainder of 2020 – a significantly sharper decline than they projected for their M&A work.