Is the Tech IPO Window Closing?

The megawatt technology IPO always seems just over the horizon. If you’re hoping for some big, new publicly traded tech stocks next year, the latest market trouble should be profoundly worrying.

Facebook Inc. went public six years ago and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. four. Since then, things have been a bit boring. We’ve had some mildly interesting tech unicorns go public: Snap Inc., Xiaomi Corp., Dropbox Inc. and Spotify Technology SA—if you count the music streaming company’s strange direct listing. When Snap went public, there was some hope that it would be the next big thing. The narrative was that the messaging company’s early initial public offering would allow it to grow into the next social media giant. Instead, the company’s market capitalization has slid from $18 billion last year to less than half that today. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel wrote a long memo that said very little reassuring, and a new analyst report warns that the company is “quickly running out of money.”