Nasdaq Extends Over a Decade of Listings Leadership as U.S. IPO Market Rebounds

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Nasdaq once again led the U.S. listings market in 2025, welcoming the largest exchange transfer in history and the biggest IPO of the year.

This year marked the exchange’s highest volume for capital raised since 2021, $46.65 billion from new listings, extending a decade of leadership in U.S. listings and underscoring Nasdaq’s role as the home to many of the world’s most ambitious and innovative companies.

In addition to robust IPO activity, 22 companies transferred their listings to Nasdaq this year, representing $1.2 trillion in market value and pushing Nasdaq past $4 trillion in cumulative transferred market value since 2005.

“Nasdaq captured the largest IPO of the year, and the largest exchange transfer of the year,” said Jeff Thomas, Nasdaq Executive Vice President, Global Head of Listings. “These milestones reflect our commitment to enabling clients to achieve their outcomes including helping them to shape their value propositions to investors and connect capital to opportunity.”

A Revitalized U.S. IPO Market

The U.S. IPO market experienced a marked resurgence in 2025. Supported by a stabilizing macroeconomic backdrop, a maturing pipeline of companies, and stronger aftermarket performance, issuers returned to the public markets at the fastest pace in four years. While the environment remains selective, investors rewarded companies with proven fundamentals and durable business models.

Nasdaq’s 2025 cohort reflects this shift toward quality and sector breadth. Marquee IPOs included:

• Medline, the largest IPO of the year
• Coreweave, the largest AI IPO of the year
• Sailpoint, the largest enterprise software IPO of the year

In 2025, Nasdaq celebrated major listing milestones with long-standing partners, including Qualcomm and Ulta Beauty’s 35th anniversaries, and AMD and Atlassian’s 10th anniversaries.

“I see that as a testament to the strength of our franchise — the marketing and visibility platform, the index inclusion opportunities, and the trading platform,” Thomas said.

This year, Nasdaq also announced plans to launch Nasdaq Texas, a dual-listing venue designed to support the state’s rapidly growing business community and help broaden investor access to emerging opportunities. Nasdaq already partners with 800 clients across the state and has over 200 listed companies that call Texas home, representing over $2 trillion in market cap.

The initiative is part of Nasdaq’s long-term strategy to expand its regional footprint across listings, technology, data, and advocacy, further strengthening capital formation infrastructure throughout the U.S.

Switching to Nasdaq

Beyond extending its decade of listings leadership, Nasdaq’s 2025 featured the biggest exchange transfer in history in Walmart.

The class of 2025 also included Shopify and Kimberly-Clark — further cementing Nasdaq as the exchange of choice for companies seeking a modern, client-centric, and globally trusted platform.

“People want to be a part of the future, not part of the past,” said Thomas. “If you look at the largest exchange transfer of all time with Walmart, this is a key moment in their history. They’re trying to drive innovation as a people-led, technology-enabled business that’s meeting the moment in terms of where their customers are today, and we’re pleased to provide a platform for them to do that.”

Thomas added that switch activity remains one of Nasdaq’s strongest proof points of issuer trust. Companies that transfer to Nasdaq collectively represent nearly one-third of the Nasdaq-100 Index, demonstrating how switching is often the beginning of a long-term relationship and an amplifier for company visibility, liquidity, and brand strength.

Advancing Regulatory Reform

Nasdaq continued to champion issuer advocacy and public-market modernization throughout 2025. Earlier this month, Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman joined SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins for a discussion on how to advance policies that support new listings and public companies.

“Companies love the fact that being public provides a great platform for exposure, lowers costs of capital, and creates liquidity — but there are opportunities for us to further enhance the public company model,” Thomas said.

Those opportunities, he explained, center around right-sizing disclosure burdens, reforming the proxy process, and rethinking the shareholder litigation process.

A Look Ahead

Looking ahead to IPOs in 2026, Thomas highlighted the industries of the future as ones to watch, and Nasdaq’s role in helping them navigate their way to and through life as a public company.

“We’re excited to welcome innovative companies to the public markets that are defining the future, including companies that are driving things forward in the world of generative AI, space, and technology,” he said.

“It starts with the amazing platform that we’ve created to launch companies into the public markets and help them tell their stories to investors, and it goes well beyond that.”

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: 
Information set forth in this article contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Nasdaq cautions readers that any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and that actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such “will,” “plans,” “expects,” “may,” “believe” and other words and terms of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the Company’s growth strategy and market expectations, products and services, ability to enhance or innovate new ways for companies to join the public markets, future listing activity, and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties, or other factors beyond Nasdaq’s control. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in Nasdaq’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q which are available on Nasdaq’s investor relations website at ir.nasdaq.com and the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Nasdaq undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.