The new IPO story is lowered expectations

By the numbers: Instacart said it plans to offer 22 million shares at between $26 and $28 per share.

• At the high end, that would work out to a $9.3 billion fully diluted valuation, compared to $39 billion in its last private round in early 2021, and even below a recent internal valuation reset to $13 billion.
• Klaviyo plans to offer 19.2 million shares at $25 to $27 per share. The top end fully diluted valuation would be below $9 billion, compared to its $9.5 billion valuation when last raising VC funding in July 2022.

What to know: Instacart is the bigger name, but the potential IPO pipeline has a lot more companies that look like Klaviyo, in terms of being based on a SaaS business model.

The bottom line: Both companies may be pricing for a pop, which often generates a virtuous headline cycle. And the very fact they're going public at all suggests confidence that public market investors are finally ready to ride some private "unicorns," even if at a lower altitude than previously expected.