Intel-Backed Altera Joins IPO Tsunami
The Altera debut will add to more than $160 billion raised for US IPOs so far this year excluding SPAC launches, according to Bloomberg data.
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Room for one more?
IPOs are back and white hot in 2026, and the momentum extends far beyond the mega debuts of just SpaceX and, potentially, Anthropic. On Tuesday, the trend found its latest applicant: the Intel-backed chipmaker Altera, which filed confidentially for a US IPO to come as soon as this year. It may be the truest test yet of the market’s AI and IPO appetites.
Chip off the Intel Block
Altera’s recent history has been spotty, to say the least. The company, which makes programmable semiconductors used in telecoms, industrial automation, defense systems and, yes, data centers (where they play a complementary role to central GPUs), was acquired for $16.7 billion by Intel way back in pre-ChatGPT 2015. By last year, after the unit bled hundreds of millions of dollars, Intel sold a 51% stake in Altera to private equity firm Silver Lake at half that valuation.
Now Altera and its backers are trying to convince Wall Street that the AI capex boom has fueled a turnaround story worthy of backing:
- The company is seeking to raise $2 billion in its IPO, according to Reuters. That would make it one of the largest recent debuts for a US semiconductor firm, trailing only Arm’s $5 billion debut in 2023 and Cerebras’ $5.5 billion debut in May.
- In July, CEO Raghib Hussain told Reuters that the company expects to grow revenue by more than 20% for the second straight year and has more than doubled operating income. In its last year with Intel in 2024, the parent company said Altera’s revenue fell 48% to $1.5 billion.
Post-Post-Pandemic: The Altera debut will add to more than $160 billion raised for US IPOs so far this year excluding SPAC launches, according to Bloomberg data. Yes, the $85 billion raised for SpaceX accounts for a big chunk of that, but the volume of debuts is also surging: 331 companies have filed for IPOs so far this year and 280 have completed their debuts, according to Wall Street Horizon data through September 8. That’s more than in the first three quarters of last year, which itself marked a major rebound from 2024 and 2023.
