What’s your experience with IPOs? (and will Stripe or Databricks list in 2023?)

In My Humble Opinion
1

The whole stock market is prone to hype and rumour, but IPOs seem to be at another level. I’ve only had experience of RocketLab, which I briefly saw an 80% return within two weeks of launch, only for it to fall fairly quickly to around 20% below what I paid for it. I’m optimistic for a resurgence when their Neutron rocket gets operational.

Undeterred, I’ve been casting around for other potential IPOs and articles like this one are fairly typical:

https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/slideshows/best-stocks-ipo-this-year

The two that I feel most interested in are Stripe and Databricks, so I wanted to know whether the article’s suggestion that the second half of 2023 for their IPOs sounds likely, and whether they are already hyped too much? Would anyone see them as a good long-term investment? An opportunity to make a quick gain? Or are alarm bells ringing and you wouldn’t touch them? Are they actually any good compared to the myriad of other payment and data management stocks out there?

Note:
Not looking for general investment advice. I have sufficient investment funds elsewhere and an active work savings scheme. This is my ‘hobby money’ and I’m fully aware of the perils of trying to time the market and ignoring diversification.

2

The number of tech IPOs have fallen significantly. So I would wonder what makes these companies special? There are basically two extremes: they are much better off than the typical companies that would have IPOed but have held off due to the current market mood or they are sleazy people who set up a company just to do an IPO and clear out. Sales records and such might tell the difference.

The chilliness of the IPO market has me concerned. A relative finally hit it with being employee #6 at a tech company that’s doing well. Has a lot of “money” on paper from stock options. Been waiting for the IPO for some time. And waiting, and waiting.

There are also IPO issues due to newly overly cautious venture capitalists. A company that had relied on VCs for capital might be forced to do an IPO early to raise money. So check those companies’ VC investing timelines.