Tech IPO Hopes Turn to 2018

This hasn’t turned out to be the boom year for tech IPOs that some expected, so bankers and investors are turning their attention to 2018. At least a couple of high profile U.S. unicorns are expected to go public next year, including Dropbox and Peloton and maybe Airbnb. Less likely is Lyft, which now isn’t expected to go public until sometime after 2018.

There is still a chance that this year will end up with more tech IPOs than in 2016, when there were fewer tech IPOs than any year since 2009. Six tech companies have filed with the SEC to go public, including Roku and Ancestry.com, and at least 10 more filed confidentially, including MongoDB and Stitch Fix. That’s on top of the 17 IPOs that have already occurred, according to data compiled by Dealogic. Last year 26 tech companies went public. The last strong year for tech IPOs was 2014, when there were 62 deals raising a total of $40.8 billion, including Alibaba’s blockbuster $25 billion offering. (See the chart above for a year-by-year breakdown.)