Renaissance Capital expects busy fall for IPO activity as 2026 proceeds hit record $146 billion

Renaissance Capital, the IPO research firm that has spent more than 35 years tracking the new-listings market, published its Fall 2026 US IPO Preview on September 8, projecting a packed autumn calendar headlined by some of the most anticipated names in artificial intelligence. Nicholas Einhorn, a senior analyst at the firm, said Renaissance expects a busy fall, driven by healthy investor demand and a deep bench of high-profile companies ready to go public. US IPO proceeds have already reached a record $146 billion year-to-date. Strip out SpaceX’s landmark offering, which raised roughly $75 billion in June and became the largest IPO in history, and you’re still looking at $71 billion in proceeds from the rest of the market. AI companies anchor the fall pipeline The most closely watched names on the fall calendar sit squarely in the AI sector. Anthropic, the safety-focused AI developer behind the Claude model family, is among the key candidates Renaissance Capital flagged as a potential fall IPO. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is also on the radar as a possible listing, though the timing on that one remains less certain. Beyond AI, the anticipated pipeline stretches across finte...