Crunchbase: 2026 tech IPO proceeds concentrated in two companies as Anthropic, OpenAI offering chatter continues
2026-09-16
Crunchbase News reports that SpaceX (83%) and Cerebras (6%) accounted for roughly 89% of the nearly $90 billion raised by U.S. venture-backed tech companies in public offerings so far in 2026, with enterprise SaaS IPOs essentially absent this year. The piece notes a potential Anthropic offering 'could be even bigger,' and that Anthropic and OpenAI 'still dominate IPO chatter' among pipeline companies, without any confirmed filing from either.
Significance 3: Meaningful financial-market context on two tracked labs' capital-markets trajectory and the broader AI-vs-SaaS IPO divide, but remains speculative chatter rather than a confirmed filing or event.
Implications · machine-drafted, not owner judgment
With public markets funding a small number of capital-intensive infrastructure bets rather than a broad wave of AI software companies, a prospective Anthropic or OpenAI offering would concentrate the AI-IPO story even further in two labs' hands. The near-total absence of enterprise SaaS IPOs is itself an AI-adoption signal: incumbents appear to be reading agent-interface disruption (see the Salesforce AIforce event) as a reason to stay private rather than test public markets this year.
- An actual S-1 filing from Anthropic or OpenAI, as distinct from continued unconfirmed chatter
- Whether any enterprise SaaS company breaks the 2026 IPO drought before year-end
Sources
- press A Hard Year For Software IPOs retrieved 2026-09-16