Q2’s clearest shift was that healthcare stopped being just a filing story and started leading the tape. In the quarter’s 44 traded IPOs, healthcare and biotech produced 12 deals with average 17.4% first-day and 13.8% current returns, while industrials were next at 21.9% and 16.5%. Technology still absorbed 52.1% of proceeds, but its traded set averaged only 5.0% on day one and -3.8% on the current mark. Financials were weaker still, averaging -9.9% on day one and -8.5% currently.
The filing pipeline looked different. IPOGrid’s trailing-13-week sector prospectus-count chart and final-prospectus chart show financials leading raw activity, ahead of technology and healthcare. Our read is that Q2 rewarded selectivity, not filing volume: the busiest sector was not the one that cleared best with investors.
Technology was a scale story first and a breadth story second. Cerebras priced the quarter’s largest deal at $5.55 billion, and MarketWatch noted that the valuation worked out to more than 100 times 2025 revenue. Fervo Energy followed with a $1.89 billion utilities IPO, but utilities were a one-name sample. IPOGrid reads the sector split this way: investors paid up for singular AI and power narratives, yet the average tech issuer did not inherit Cerebras’ reception.
Healthcare had both volume and cleaner reward. Kailera Therapeutics raised $625 million in April; by late May, BioSpace was calling it the biggest biotech IPO to date, and three weeks later Parabilis Medicines topped it with a $670 million deal that BioPharma Dive described as a new biotech record. For first-day performance, Hemab was the quarter’s standout healthcare debut: after pricing a $301.5 million IPO at $18, IPOScoop said the stock closed its first session up 88.9%. That is why the group reads less like a squeeze and more like a reopened funding lane.
Industrials were the other real winner, and the strength was broad enough to matter. Arxis was the sector’s largest deal at $1.08 billion. Late in the quarter, DPC Holdings upsized and priced at $33 for roughly $919 million, and IPOScoop reported the stock trading around $44.06 in its debut. Financials, by contrast, produced a more cautious signal: Lincoln International was the group’s largest IPO at roughly $421 million, but one decent listing could not offset the sector’s negative average returns.
Outside those leaders, the sample gets thin fast. Consumer staples had only three IPOs; even with Yesway’s $280 million deal, the group posted the quarter’s worst average current return at -11.3%. Energy and mining had five IPOs and sat roughly flat on the current mark; Rare Earths Americas priced at $19 for $63.3 million, and Yahoo Finance reported that it finished its first session flat. IPOGrid reads both sectors as small-sample signals rather than broad rotations.
Put together, Q2 looked healthier than louder. The market funded scale in AI infrastructure and power, rewarded differentiated biotech more than generic risk appetite, and gave industrial manufacturing a credible window. It did not reward sectors just for showing up with paper.