Analysis
North American startups raised $92 billion in Q3 2026 and European startups raised roughly $25 billion in the same quarter, a combined total Pulse has tracked across its own funding aggregates.
Set against that, this week's IPO pipeline produced exactly one actual pricing -- Pine Tree Acquisition Corp.'s $100 million SPAC -- even as nine companies filed fresh S-1s in a single 48-hour window. Put the two side by side and the ratio is stark: for every dollar that cleared the public markets this week, well over a thousand dollars of fresh capital went into private rounds instead.
“That is not a filing problem -- the S-1 pipeline is arguably the busiest it has been all year.”
That is not a filing problem -- the S-1 pipeline is arguably the busiest it has been all year. It is a conversion problem: capital keeps entering the system through venture rounds faster than the IPO window can clear it back out to public investors.
AI captured roughly two-thirds of North America's Q3 total (about $61 billion) and 75% of Europe's, meaning the capital stacking up behind a slow IPO window is disproportionately AI-company equity -- the same companies whose eventual exits the market is watching most closely.
