IPOs Are Soaring. What That Means for the Broader Market.

June 15, 2020

Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, which focuses on pre-IPO companies, says the recent flurry shows pent-up demand for new offerings. He thinks that the appetite is likely to remain strong for enterprise software firms like Databricks, Datastax, and Palantir, which he says could come public in the next 12 to 18 months.

One note of caution: Rao warns that the IPO market tends to shut down when the VIX —a measure of market volatility—goes north of 20 or 30. On Thursday, the indicator spiked above 40 for the first time since late April.