The IPO boom is canceled

Unless you’ve been living under a really heavy rock (in which case, scoot over) you know that US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are turning the global economy upside down.

But there’s a more surprising victim than the Nintendo Switch 2 or your 401k: IPOs.

Taking stock

The market has been tough on initial public offerings for years, with things looking rough even back in 2018 — pre-Trump’s second term and pre-covid — when the number of startups making IPOs was steadily declining.

Things were looking up for 2025, but with the drama in the stock market, startups are putting their IPO dreams on hold, per Business Insider.

• Payment platform Klarna and ticket reseller StubHub both canceled IPO plans on Friday.
• Analysts predict there could be just 150 IPOs in 2025, which would mark four straight years of decline.

That’s combined with more investment money going to fewer companies in general, which is tough on the proverbial little guy.

This is actually good…

… for superrich VC investors — but not anyone else (sorry for the fake-out).

• High-profile companies, like OpenAI, will be fine coasting on private investments.
• But the stock market is such a mess that it would be too risky for smaller companies to take a shot at an IPO.
• That means only deep-pocketed investors will be able to get in on hot startups.

Which means only the hot startups get money… which means fewer companies surviving… which means the world could miss out on the next Facebook, or some less problematic Big Tech innovation. Let’s say Waymo.

Hopefully…

… this isn’t the permanent state of things and the world of IPOs will stabilize when the market does.

Of course, there’s nobody, seemingly, who knows when that might happen. Swell.