Clear Street's 350+ engineers may not be so rich after all

Bad luck to all the engineers over at Clear Street who were already planning how to spend their windfalls. Earlier this month, the "cloud native infrastructure technology firm" filed for an IPO to raise $1.05bn. It's now postponed this after cutting the valuation by two thirds. 

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Clear Street didn't immediately respond to a request to comment, but Bloomberg reported earlier today that the IPO is resting rather than relegated to the bin and that the listing had gained "strong interest" from investors. A Clear Street spokesperson told Bloomberg it will be reconsidered in the future.

It's not clear how this will be received by Clear Street staff. They included 350+ engineers and around 500 other employees whom Clear Street's initial filing said are in danger of being poached by rivals. "Competition in the technology industry for qualified employees is intense and many of these employees hold extensive knowledge and experience in highly technical and complex areas spanning technology and capital markets, including the options, equities and futures trading and clearing industry," said the filing.

Clear Street's employees could still make money from an eventual IPO. As we reported earlier this month, the firm has issued millions of restricted stock units to employees at prices ranging between $2 and $7.4. The IPO initially targeted a valuation of $40-$44 a share, but this was cut to $26-$28 a share on Thursday, before it was shelved. 

Clear Street hired an array of London markets professionals last year and fired them again five months later. They can be forgiven for experiencing schadenfreude at the recent turn of events. Some are suggesting that Clear Street should have chased institutional accounts more vigorously. "Institutions and hedge funds are a better client base," says one. 

Clear Street's IPO prospectus says it is rebuilding "capital markets infrastructure" and that it works with "individuals, institutions, intermediaries, and corporates." In September 2025, Clear Street said it worked with 87 institutional clients, up from 48 in 2023, and that 100% of their revenues had been retained from the previous year.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22  Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. 

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.