European stock exchanges must secure an additional $5 billion from initial public offerings by year-end to exceed the $16.7 billion raised in 2025. That achievement proves difficult: the IPO pipeline has collapsed.
The number of European companies with a high probability of going public stands at 223, down 40.2 percent from 373 identified in PitchBook's 2025 outlook. More alarming, just 10 companies now have a greater than 90 percent probability of launching an IPO, versus 32 a year ago. Only a handful of billion-dollar offerings remain in the pipeline.
The backlog has halved. Three of the world's top five IPO markets by volume were European in 2025, yet that competitive position is now under pressure. South Korea recently surpassed the U.K. to become the world's eighth-largest stock market.
Euronext, the pan-European exchange combining the Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam bourses, reported weak activity in 2025. The U.K. venture capital sector, which captured an all-time high of 48 percent of European VC funding in 2026 (versus a long-run average of 35.5 percent), shows regional imbalance rather than broad strength.
Investor appetite for European equities remains strong. Global investors are directing record sums into European stocks as part of a strategic rotation away from U.S. exposure. That demand-side strength masks the critical supply constraint: few companies are ready to list.
