The pickup in IPOs this month has raised $5.4 billion, and newly-public companies have sparked excitement across Wall Street with a weighted-average return for the year's US IPO class of 21%.

The US IPO market has gone from desolate to bustling in a matter of weeks, with companies looking to raise as much as $17.3 billion this month alone and capitalize on stocks' resilience.

Debuts in the coming weeks are set to raise billions of dollars as companies look to go public before what's expected to be the market's biggest event of the year: SpaceX's record-breaking initial public offering, which Elon Musk's firm is planning for June.

"If I'm any company and I want to have a chance of attracting investors that invest in IPOs, I'd probably rather do it before that deal comes," said Bob Doll, chief executive officer of Crossmark Global Investments.

With the Iran war still harboring the potential to throw equities into a tailspin, and financial statements for companies seeking to go public needing a refresh later in May, IPO candidates appear to have decided there's no time like the present.

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The pickup in IPOs this month has raised $5.4 billion, and newly-public companies sparked excitement across Wall Street when they started making people money again. The weighted-average return for the year's US IPO class, excluding blank-check vehicles and closed-end funds, has jumped to 21% from just 4.6% about a week ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That outpaces a 4.2% return for the benchmark S&P 500 Index.

Companies have been deploying several strategies to increase the likelihood their IPOs will succeed, including lining up so-called cornerstone investors, offering a smaller pool of shares in the deal and starting with attractive discounts to publicly-listed peers.

"There's been a lot more price discipline," said Dan Klausner, head of US public equity advisory at Houlihan Lokey Inc. "And success begets success, where if you have a peer that prices and trades well it becomes appealing to go at a reasonable discount."

This week's expected IPOs are seeking to raise nearly $2 billion in aggregate. X-Energy Inc., a nuclear energy firm that counts Amazon.com Inc. as a backer, is targetingBloomberg Terminal $814 million. The deals would build on what's been the busiest month for bankers since December saw roughly $8.8 billion raised, primarily driven by Medline Inc.'s blockbuster debut.

"We have four IPOs in market slated to price this week, and eight additional IPOs publicly filed last week -- so with continued strength in equity markets, we expect ECM to remain highly active in the near term," said Sumit Mukherjee, head of equity capital markets intelligence at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Read more on IPOs: For the latest news on equity capital markets activity in the US, Canada and Latin America, follow the channel or visit NI BFWECMUS. To subscribe to ECM Watch, Bloomberg's daily roundup of news from around the region, click here.

The IPO of billionaire Bill Ackman's closed-end fund and his hedge fund will test the appetite of retail investors as it seeks to raise as much as $10 billion. The IPO is scheduled to price on April 28.

The success of the coming deals will shape the landscape for more than a dozen other companies waiting in the wings to price IPOs from artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc. to Blackstone Inc.'s data-center acquisition vehicle. Both are expected to target at least $2 billion each, which would deliver consecutive months of notable IPO activity before SpaceX's likely record-setting debut.

Flurry of US IPOs Race to Tap Market Ahead of SpaceX Debut