CB Insights report: top 5 companies most likely to have an IPO in 2017 are Qualtrics, Blue Apron, Zuora, Okta, and Pluralsight, among 369 firms in pipeline
There will be more tech companies going public in 2017 than this year. — That's the takeaway from CB Insights' fifth annual Tech …
Context & Ripple Effects
CB Insights' fifth annual ranking puts five names at the top of a 369-company IPO pipeline for 2017, and two of them were already in motion: a year earlier, sources reported Twilio had confidentially filed while Okta and Coupa interviewed underwriters, so Okta's placement reads less like a fresh call than a continuation of a documented process.
The list also functions as a timestamp for how the cycle actually played out. Qualtrics didn't make the 2017 window — it took until October 2018 to file for its IPO on $290M in revenue, up 52% YoY — and by then US tech IPO volume in H1 2018 had nearly doubled the same period of 2017, implying 2017 itself was a slower year than the report anticipated.
First-order effects
- Okta graduates from rumored underwriter interviews to a publicly ranked top-five candidate, adding external pressure on its listing timeline alongside Twilio and Coupa.
- Qualtrics, Blue Apron, Zuora, and Pluralsight each get a public benchmark for their readiness, which bankers and late-stage investors will now reference when pricing or timing those deals.
Second-order effects
- A published ranking of 369 pipeline firms turns IPO timing into a competitive signal — the named five face pressure to file before the list goes stale, while the unranked majority must explain why they aren't ready.
- If 2017 volume undershot the report's 'more than this year' thesis, as the later Dealogic comparison implies, banks advising these companies would have pushed several candidates into the stronger 2018 window instead.
Third-order effects
- Annual IPO-watchlist reports are becoming part of the exit machinery itself: research firms set expectations that shape when private companies go public, and multi-year windows — slow 2017, doubled H1 2018 — matter more than any single year's forecast.
- For enterprise-software names like Qualtrics, Zuora, Okta, and Pluralsight, the pattern points toward listings timed to sustained growth metrics rather than calendar-year predictions, with disclosure requirements forcing revenue transparency well before the filing.
The trend: Tech IPO activity moves in multi-year windows, and research-firm watchlists like CB Insights' annual ranking increasingly serve as the public scoreboard for which private companies are positioned for each opening.