Genesys confidentially files for US IPO as AI boom drives demand

:Genesys said on Monday it has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States, becoming the latest tech firm to bet on the booming AI market to attract investors.
The move comes as the IPO market recovers with investors once again turning warmer towards tech startups that they had shunned for over two years due to concerns around lofty valuations.
Genesys, an AI-driven developer of call center software, did not reveal any details about its IPO or a timeline for going public, but a September report from Bloomberg News citing sources said the company could raise as much as $2 billion in the offering.
In December 2021, Genesys raised $580 million in a funding round led by Salesforce Ventures, valuing it at $21 billion. Other investors in the round had included Zoom Video Communications, D1 Capital Partners and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
Genesys was acquired by private equity firm Permira Holdings from Alcatel-Lucent in 2012, valuing the company then at about $1.5 billion. Hellman & Friedman invested about $900 million in the company in 2016 for an equity stake.
The company’s cloud platform fetched over $1.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2025, more than 35 per cent higher than last year driven by AI demand, it said in September.
Genesys added that accelerated customer adoption of standalone AI products contributed to more than 10 per cent of the bookings of its cloud business during the first half of the fiscal year.
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Analysts expect companies catering to the artificial intelligence market to lead the charge for tech sector listings, amid heightened expectations of multi-fold growth over the next few years as corporates increasingly find more generative AI use cases.
“While there’s always a risk of a down-round IPO, companies that have leveraged AI effectively, as Genesys has done, might have a chance to exceed or at least match their previous valuation,” said Joe Endoso, CEO of private investment platform Linqto.
“The fact that they filed confidentially might also suggest they’re testing the waters to gauge investor appetite, making this a litmus test for broader market sentiment toward AI-driven businesses and the tech sector as a whole.”
Genesys operates in over 100 countries with more than 6,000 employees, according to its website. Its partners include tech giants Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Adobe.
Its customers span across the technology, retail and industrial sector, and include British airlines Virgin Atlantic, India’s Axis Bank and consumer electronics giant Lenovo.
Cerebras Systems, a startup competing with industry leader Nvidia for a slice 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, encouraging other companies in the sector to accelerate their plans for going public,” Endoso added.