One company has already moved its primary listing to New York, another has filed to list there from a London base, and a third is still preparing for London. Together they say more about the UK tech IPO drought than the listing statistics do.
On the morning of 11th May, Wise began trading on Nasdaq, and its chief executive, Kristo Käärmann, went on a US business channel to explain why.
The company he co-founded in London in 2011 and went public in London in 2021 now has its primary listing in New York, with a secondary listing kept in London and results reported in dollars.
On paper it was a change of corporate structure, but in practice it was a statement about where a British technology company expects to be valued.
Wise is the most visible exhibit in the UK tech IPO drought, though it is not the only one, so the question underneath it is what London would have to change for the next Wise to stay, and the answer depends on which part of the problem is being solved.
A drought that depends on how you count
The figures can be read two ways, and both the readings hold.
London recorded 23 listings in 2025, raising £2.1bn, a 170% rise in proceeds from 2024, and the first nine months of 2026 have brought in £606.9m, which is roughly three times the £199.1m raised in the same period of 2025.
Those proceeds came from eight listings, though, and the third quarter produced one: the £29.8m AIM debut of 1947 Oil & Gas, the quietest quarter since the end of 2023, when no company listed at all.
Over the same nine months, global IPO proceeds reached US $290bn, more than double the US $114 billion of a year earlier, so the UK IPO market 2026 has improved in the amount raised and stayed thin in the number of companies choosing it, while the global market has moved much faster. That mix makes the UK tech IPO drought hard to capture in a single number.
That mix makes the UK tech IPO drought really hard to capture in a single number.
The share of UK companies listing at home tells the story from another side.
Of all the UK companies that went public in 2025, 46% of them did so domestically, against 71% in 2019. The wider UK IPO drought, therefore, has two halves: the companies that leave and the companies that never arrive, and the London Stock Exchange listings decline has been fed by both.
Why UK companies list in the US
Wise’s shareholders backed the move overwhelmingly, with more than 90% of Class A holders in favour, and a High Court judge sanctioned the scheme back in April.
The company pointed to greater visibility in the US, where it employs more than 750 people, the vote carried friction all the same, because the plan was tied to an extension of a dual-class structure under which early shareholders’ votes are worth nine times those of newer ones. Käärmann holds 18.1% of the shares and 40.75% of the votes, and co-founder Taavet Hinrikus objected publicly.
“Wise owners deserve governance structures that enhance value, not entrench power.”— Taavet Hinrikus, Wise co-founder
The Wise primary listing on Nasdaq decision bundles the usual answers to why UK companies list in the US: customers, a deeper pool of investors and a governance structure founders can keep.
We think that bundle matters, because no single change to London’s rules can answer all three at once, and the UK tech IPO drought may be as much about that bundle as about any one rule.
Read next: Taavet Hinrikus and Wise’s Unfinished Business
Companies that were never going to list in London
Nscale shows how the UK tech IPO drought looks from the other end, where a company is built in London and is priced elsewhere. The Nvidia-backed company closed a $2bn Series C in March at a $14.6bn valuation, filed its S-1 on 18th September to list on the NYSE under the ticker NSCL, and has since closed a $3.36bn pre-IPO convertible note round led by Third Point.
Its first-half 2026 revenue was $140.6m, up from $10.4m a year earlier, against a net loss of $1.02bn.
We think a profile like that is easiest to value beside listed AI infrastructure peers such as CoreWeave and Nebius, which trade in the US, and Nscale is the latest of the UK startups listing in New York, or preparing to, whose reasons have little to do with London’s rulebook.
Revolut has been equally direct. Its latest private valuation is reportedly $115bn, and any IPO would carry a US primary listing, with a London dual listing still under consideration and a date no earlier than 2028.
“That was always the target, given the deep liquidity of the U.S. market.”— Nik Storonsky, Revolut co-founder and CEO, on a US primary listing
What London has offered
None of this actually began in 2026, Arm took its return to public markets to Nasdaq in 2023 at a valuation of $54.5bn, and London has been rewriting its rulebook ever since.
Listing rules were rebuilt around a single category in July 2024, a new prospectus regime arrived in January 2026, and the first deal on the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market under the FCA’s PISCES framework completed in the first quarter.
The sharpest incentive is the stamp duty exemption new listings UK-wide now enjoy, announced in the November 2025 Budget for three years, which removes the 0.5% charge that sets London apart from centres such as New York and Frankfurt.
Eleven months later, the exemption has not changed the outlook materially, and the valuation gap to US markets has not narrowed. The buyers who once anchored UK equities have also thinned, with pension fund holdings of UK-listed equities falling from 39% to 6% between 2002 and 2021. We think that is why the UK tech IPO drought persists even as the rulebook improves.
The two still pointing at London
The companies still pointing at London are as informative as those leaving.
The Monzo IPO has been prepared with Morgan Stanley advising and a reported valuation of £6bn to £7bn, and the board chose London after what was reportedly a dispute with its then chief executive over where and when to list.
Monzo closed its US operations in April and secured an EU banking licence, narrowing its focus to the UK and Europe. Its new chief executive has said she is in no hurry, and no prospectus has been published.
Visma, the Norwegian software group backed by London-based private equity firm Hg, chose London over Amsterdam for a listing valued at around €19bn, then pushed the date back, first to October and then into next year, after a sell-off in software stocks.
Neither delay settles anything about London, since both fit a difficult software market as easily as they fit a weak pull. ClearScore’s chief executive,Justin Basini, has argued publicly that London is the rational choice for British fintechs, and a Monzo IPO that lists and trades well would be the strongest test of that view.
For the UK IPO market 2026, the cases that would matter most are the ones still waiting.
What we’d watch
If the UK tech IPO drought is partly about price, the open question is whether a well-received Monzo IPO could change what UK investors will pay for growth or whether it would be read as a one-off.
If it is partly about control, we wonder whether founders who want Wise’s share structure will ever treat London as an option, and if it is mostly about where the comparable companies already sit, it is not clear which anchor listing would be large enough to move the next Nscale’s decision.
Does the answer to why UK companies list in the US differ company by company, and if so, can any single policy fix reach all of them?
Which of the three is doing the most work in the UK tech IPO drought, and what would the first sign of it easing look like?
This piece is based on secondary research. We would welcome any conversations with founders and investors involved in listing decisions.
Sources: EY-Parthenon IPO Eye releases (FY 2025, 6 Jan 2026; Q1, 9 Apr 2026; H1, 7 Jul 2026; Q3, 15 Oct 2026) · PitchBook via Private Equity Wire, “UK IPO drought pushes PE firms towards sponsor sales” · Wise plc scheme of arrangement announcement · PA Media (27 Apr 2026) · BusinessCloud (13 Apr and 11 May 2026) · CNBC (11 May 2026) · TechFundingNews and Pulse 2.0 (Nscale S-1) · The Next Web (Nscale pre-IPO round; Monzo US exit) · PYMNTS/Bloomberg (8 Oct 2026) · MarketScreener (9 Oct 2026) · IG UK (Monzo IPO; H1 2026 IPO review) · Kalkine (23 Sep 2026) · Bloomberg (Visma, 27 Mar 2026) · Portfolio Adviser (26 Nov 2025) · LBC · S&P Global Market Intelligence / New Financial (4 Jan 2024) · City AM (Arm) · UKTN (ClearScore, 9 Apr 2026)
