IPOs Roar Back, Injecting Cash Into Venture Firms

September is on track for six venture-backed tech listings, the most since November 2021. The rising number of IPOs means venture funds can start returning more cash to the limited partners that back them, relieving one of the strains that had held back VC fundraising over the last few years.

Nearly all of September’s listings are from companies more than 10 years old. These include Netskope, which plans to price its IPO late Wednesday, giving an eventual windfall to investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Iconiq and Accel. All three firms invested at least a decade ago and are sitting on stakes worth between $560 million and $1.2 billion, based at the top of the recently proposed price range for the cloud security startup.