Investor demand for an IPO could be a litmus test for an AI appetite analyst
The company posted a valuation of $21 billion in 2021 fundraising
Backers include PE giants Permira, Hellman & Friedman
Oct 21 (Reuters) – Genesys said on Monday it has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States, becoming the latest technology company to bet on the booming AI market to attract investors.
The move comes as the IPO market rebounds, with investors once again warming up to tech startups they had avoided for more than two years over concerns about high valuations.
Genesys, an AI-powered call center software developer, has not revealed details about its IPO or a timeline for the IPO, but did reveal a September reportopens a new tab of Bloomberg News quoted sources as saying the company could raise as much as $2 billion from the offering.
In December 2021, Genesys raised $580 million in a funding round led by Salesforce Ventures, which valued it at $21 billion. Other investors in the round included Zoom Video Communications (ZM.O)opens a new tabD1 Capital Partners and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock (BLK.N)opens a new tab.
Genesys was acquired from Alcatel-Lucent by private equity firm Permira Holdings in 2012, valuing the company at about $1.5 billion at the time. Hellman & Friedman invested about $900 million in the company for an equity stake in 2016.
The company’s cloud platform generated more than $1.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, up more than 35% from last year thanks to demand for AI, it said in September.
Genesys added that accelerated customer adoption of standalone AI products contributed to more than 10% of its cloud business bookings during the first half of the fiscal year.
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Analysts expect companies focused on the artificial intelligence market to lead the way in tech sector listings, amid increased expectations of multiple-fold growth in the coming years as companies increasingly find generative AI use cases.
“While there is always a risk of an IPO downside, companies that have deployed AI effectively, as Genesys has done, have a chance to exceed or at least match their prior valuation,” said Joe Endoso, CEO of the private investment platform Linqto. .
“The fact that they filed confidentially could also indicate that they are testing things out to gauge investor interest, making this a litmus test for broader market sentiment towards AI-driven companies and the technology sector as a whole.”
According to its website, Genesys operates in more than 100 countries with more than 6,000 employees. Partners include technology giants Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft (MSFT.O)opens a new tab and Adobe (ADBE.O)opens a new tab.
Its clients span the technology, retail and industrial sectors, including British airlines Virgin Atlantic and India’s Axis Bank (AXBK.NS)opens a new tab and consumer electronics giant Lenovo (0992.HK)opens a new tab.
Cerebras Systems, a startup competing with market leader Nvidia (NVDA.O)opens a new tab for a piece of the lucrative AI chip market, also filed for a U.S. IPO late last month.
“If these listings perform well, it would signal that the market has a strong appetite for AI-driven growth, which would encourage other companies in the sector to accelerate their plans to go public,” Endoso added .
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Reporting by Manya Saini and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber
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Manya Saini reports on prominent publicly traded U.S. financial companies, including Wall Street’s largest banks, card companies, asset managers and fintechs. Also covers late-stage venture capital financing, initial public offerings on US stock exchanges, in addition to news and regulatory developments in the cryptocurrency industry. Her work usually appears in the Finance, Markets, Business and Future of Money sections of the website.
Niket Nishant reports on the latest news and quarterly results from Wall Street’s largest banks, card companies, financial technology startups and asset managers. He also covers the largest IPOs on US exchanges and late-stage venture capital financing, in addition to news and regulatory developments in the cryptocurrency industry. His articles appear on the Finance, Business, Markets and Future of Money sections of the website. He did his post-graduation from the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM) in Bengaluru.
