Globally, the initial public offering (IPO) market turned a corner in 2024. There were 1,340 IPOs, generating a deal value of more than $126 billion—up from $120.13 billion in 2023.  

However, the IPO market is not back to 2021 levels, when low interest rates and markets being at an all-time high helped generate $606.68 billion from 3,136 IPOs. 

“I don’t think anyone is predicting a return to 2021 levels. The question is, when do we come back to a normal year? This year will be a better year than last year, but still not an average year,” said Akhil Chainwala, senior investment director of Swedish investment company Kinnevik, which has invested in Mews and TravelPerk.

According to Lorenzo Thione, serial entrepreneur and managing director of investment syndicate Gaingels, there is still a bit of uncertainty in 2025.

“There’s a lot of circumspect optimism around travel tech [IPOs], but also just broadly in other sectors. We’ve seen a period where the IPO window was just completely shut and there weren’t any exit opportunities,” he said.

“What is missing is the signals from the market about what the underwriting for those exits are in terms of revenue multiples. That creates a lot of nervousness, so there’s been this period of uncertainty where valuations kind of got detached from reality.”

Mixed IPO picture

Fritz Demopoulos, founding partner of venture capital firm Queen’s Road Capital, which supports entrepreneurs in Asia, said private equity is driving much of the investment activity—although this is not necessarily leading to IPOs just yet.

“We are seeing large, growth and late-stage deals getting done by the tier-one private equity firms, yet we haven’t yet seen new issuances to the public,” he said. “One reason for this [is that] growth and late-stage private equity firms have taken the place of what were historically small-cap IPOs.”

Kinnevik’s Chainwala also said we’re in an IPO market that “values scale.”

“This is a market where there is still uncertainty and volatility, and in that type of environment, investors prefer the relative safety of a larger, more proven business. Investors are very focused on the predictability and durability of growth.”

Demopoulos added that investors are demanding a higher standard for new issuances in the public markets, including reasonable growth prospects and solid bottom-line financial performance.

“Those travel firms with a strong track-record of growth and a solid margin structure, operating at scale across multiple geographies, will be warmly received by public market investors,” he said.

White & Case, a law firm with wide experience of capital markets and IPOs, said India cemented its position as the most active IPO market in the world in 2024.

This year is already looking up compared to 2024, and one of the big debuts could be OYO. The SoftBank-backed hotel group and would-be Airbnb rival pulled a planned IPO in May 2024, the second time in three years.

Comments from people close to the deal say that creditors are trying to force founder Ritesh Agarwal to repay a significant part of a multibillion-dollar loan package if the IPO doesn’t happen before October this year.

An OYO spokesman said these are “conjectures and rumors.” He added that the company had seen “more than eight quarters of profitability and hopefully significantly more profit-after-tax-positive quarters before we think towards another direction.”

Asian markets have proven volatile recently, but the outlook is healthy, according to Demopoulos.

“Asia’s most important equity market, Hong Kong, has recovered nicely and there’s a long queue of new issuances,” he said. “A lot has to do with the DeepSeek effect, which broke the prevailing pessimism that the big Chinese firms were falling behind. Also, we’re seeing the gradual recovery of the mainland Chinese consumer market.”

The United States, meanwhile, is on an upward trajectory, and IPO proceeds rose by 75% year-on-year to reach $41.36 billion in 2024.

Demopoulos said, “The U.S. markets have experienced a favorable uptick, partly related to the new administration and a more recent reversion. The bankers are certainly making the rounds to tee-up the most promising companies to access the public markets.”

Cruise company Viking was among the 2024 U.S. IPOs. The company had projected a range of $21 to $25 per share and ended up at $24, raising more than $1.5 billion and valuing the company at $11 billion. Corporate travel company Navan (formerly TripActions) has been rumored in recent months to be looking at its options.

However, other companies are pressing pause. After filing an IPO in March, ticketing company StubHub delayed its plans to go public in early April amid President Donald Trump’s new tariff plan. Buy now, pay later company Klarna paused its IPO.

Good start for European travel IPOs

In Europe, meanwhile, IPO proceeds doubled to $16.63 billion last year.

HBX Group, the parent of lodging marketplace Hotelbeds, went to the Spanish markets in February, raising €748 million and valuing the company at €2.5 billion.

The U.S. markets have experienced a favorable uptick, partly related to the new administration and a more recent reversion. The bankers are certainly making the rounds to tee-up the most promising companies to access the public markets.

Fritz Demopoulos, Queen’s Road Capital

Looking ahead, one European IPO to watch is Berlin-based GetYourGuide, an online marketplace for tours and ancillaries. Queen’s Road Capital is an investor in the $2 billion-valued startup.

While Demopoulos wouldn’t be drawn on a possible IPO for the company, he said, “Only a small percentage of bookings are done via mobile/online, a large portion of the supply base is still getting up to speed digitally and consumers are only beginning to realize the incredible convenience and options for discovery. We’ll see at least one, maybe two, companies create billions [in] value for their customers, suppliers, employees and, of course, investors.”

Feeding the coming IPO boom may be the wave of artificial intelligence (AI)-based travel startups, but has the market shock of the entry of DeepSeek affected their chances of achieving their valuations?

“The real story about DeepSeek was that it should be a wake-up call for both investors and operators in the incremental value of foundational models,” Thione said.

“Just look at oil and energy consumption—every time the cost of a unit of energy goes down, consumption goes up. There’s an enormous amount of early-stage startups [founded on] the impact that AI can have on travel to connect ticket optimization, inventory management, even just travel planning and creating better consumer experiences for travel.”

Overall, Thione has a “cautious optimism” about the state of travel IPOs.

“We think there is a line of sight to the IPO window reopening and for a public market that’s been starved at opportunities to invest in innovative companies and new companies that are bringing new business models. If that starts to happen, we’ll have the double effect of creating more liquidity and more investment into these companies and providing anchoring data for early-stage evaluations.”