Kraken, one of the longest-running crypto exchanges, has taken a major step toward going public, filing for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) through its parent company, Payward, Inc. The draft S-1 registration statement was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), formally placing Kraken in the IPO pipeline. The confidential filing follows an $800 million fundraising round completed on Tuesday, which valued Kraken at $20 billion.
When Kim Min-seok gave the go-ahead in June 2016 to publish a 90-second clip of a children's song, he had no idea what he was unleashing. It became a global phenomenon, clocking up more than 16 billion views - YouTube's most watched video ever. That song was the incredibly catchy Baby Shark. Not only has it captivated toddlers and terrorised adults around the world, it laid the foundations for its creator Pinkfong to become a media business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Priced at ₹109, the company's shares climbed as high as ₹161.99 before closing at ₹156.49, valuing the seven-year-old company at ₹448 billion (around $5 billion). That's well above its listing valuation of ₹315 billion (approximately $3.6 billion), and roughly 79% higher than its last private valuation of $2.8 billion in September 2024. The strong IPO highlights the remarkable growth arc of Physics Wallah, which started off as a YouTube channel run by founder Alakh Pandey in 2016.
Klook, a Hong Kong- and Singapore-based travel booking company, is filing for an initial public offering in New York, showing that despite the events of the past year, the U.S. remains a top listing destination for Asian companies. The company, founded in 2014 by Ethan Lin and Eric Gnock Fah, claims to be the largest experience booking platform in Asia by gross transaction volume, with 65 million experiences booked in the twelve months ending Sept. 30. In its IPO prospectus, Klook revealed that it generated $417.1 million in revenue in 2024, a 24% increase. Yet the company isn't profitable, losing $99.3 million last year.
"We are well north now of the financial minimums needed for an IPO," he tells The Register during the Ubuntu 25.10 Summit at Canonical's headquarters. However, the open source veteran emphasizes the real barrier is operational readiness rather than revenue, product, or technical milestones. "I am very calmly of the view that we should be a public company, but also very calmly of the view that there's no need to do it when we're not mature enough."
The corporate travel and expense management platform debuted on the Nasdaq on Thursday at $25 per share, in the middle of its expected range, raising $923 million at a $6.2 billion valuation. It's the largest company to test the IPO waters during the government shutdown. The shutdown has prompted some other companies to delay their public listings, including consumer group Unilever's spinoff of its Magnum Ice Cream unit.
Ensemble Health, a major player in healthcare revenue management, is seeking a potential $13 billion sale or IPO next year, Business Insider has learned. Ensemble, owned primarily by private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners, has tapped JPMorgan to pursue a sale, five people with knowledge of the deal told Business Insider. At the same time, Ensemble is considering an IPO and has pulled in Goldman Sachs to support the dual-track approach, three of the people said.
In a development born of the government shutdown, the SEC announced Thursday that companies can proceed with IPOs using an obscure automatic approval process, now with the added bonus of skipping pricing information entirely. What's happening is that with 90% of SEC staff furloughed, startups can file their paperwork and have it automatically become effective after 20 days. This option always existed; firms just rarely use it because they prefer having SEC reviewers actually look at their disclosures before going public.
"Phoenix Education Partners, parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, which announced its IPO plans one day before the shutdown began, said on Wednesday that it has priced its shares at $32. That's the midpoint of its earlier targeted range of between $31 and $33 a share. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the "PXED" ticker symbol. Selling shareholders will offer roughly 4.3 million shares of its common stock,"
"The Beauty Tech Group's successful IPO is a fantastic example of a North West scale-up which has achieved rapid growth through innovating category-leading beauty technology and building a global brand portfolio. The IPO will position the business well for investing in future innovation and ongoing international expansion. It's hugely encouraging to see a North West-founded business choosing to list domestically, potentially revitalising the London IPO landscape. This is a milestone worth celebrating for the company and for the rest of the UK's economic engine."
Despite being under a year old and having no revenue, Fermi America had a very successful initial public offering (IPO) this week. The company, which aims to provide data and power centers for artificial intelligence, saw its shares (Nasdaq: FRMI) close at $32.53 on their first day of trading Wednesday, up nearly 55% from their IPO price of $21 per share. Fermi's stock price continued to rise through after-hours and into premarket trading on Thursday, reaching $36.
Blockchain lender Figure Technology is the latest crypto company to go public. On Thursday, Figure debuted on the Nasdaq after raising $787.5 million in its IPO. The company's shares listed at $25 but soared almost 30% to trade at $32 Thursday afternoon. That means the company, whose ticker is FIGR, is trading at about a $6 billion valuation. Founded in 2018, Figure's business centers around putting mortgages on the blockchain, which the company says speeds up the granting and funding of home loans.
Klarna, the Swedish buy-now-pay-later company, has made its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. Klarna sold 34.3 million shares to investors at $40 a share late on Tuesday and was listed on the exchange on Wednesday. That is above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share and values the company at more than $15bn.
