To understand what鈥檚 holding the IPO market back and what could unlock it, SA国际传媒 News recently spoke with , U.S. IPO services leader at , via email. He discussed how companies are rethinking IPO timing this year, how investor expectations have shifted since the 2021 boom, and why the next wave of large listings could raise the bar for smaller and mid-cap tech companies.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

SA国际传媒 News: How are companies thinking about timing, pricing and capital needs in this uncertain market?

Bellin: The companies we work with have become significantly more sophisticated in their approach to all three dimensions, and the most important shift we’ve seen is a move away from calendar-driven thinking toward readiness-driven thinking.

On timing, companies are no longer asking “when is the window?” They’re asking, “Are we ready when the window opens?” That’s a meaningful evolution.

After years of intermittent issuance windows, late-stage companies have learned hard lessons about the cost of being caught flat-footed. The companies that priced successfully in 2025 had invested 18 to 24 months in advance in governance upgrades, financial reporting infrastructure, and refinement of their equity story.

That institutional preparation is now table stakes. As we’ve noted in our , market windows can open and close quickly, which makes continuous readiness and flexibility essential, regardless of where macro conditions stand on any given day.

On pricing, there’s been a healthy reset in expectations. The exuberance of 2021, when companies could access the market at growth multiples untethered from near-term fundamentals, is not what we’re operating in today.

Investors today are paying a premium for scaled, cash-generative stories with clear paths to profitability. That means founders and their boards have had harder conversations about the right price relative to where comparable public companies trade, rather than anchoring to the last private-round valuations.

The good news is that median pre-money valuations have begun to rise for the first time since 2021, particularly for AI-enabled businesses and later-stage companies with clear profitability trajectories. The reset isn’t a permanent discount; it’s a quality filter.

On capital needs, we’re seeing more disciplined thinking about sizing. Nearly every company going public targets a raise that covers 18 to 24 months of operations, ideally through to profitability.

What’s changed is that companies are also thinking harder about their post-IPO capital structure: How do the IPO proceeds interact with existing debt, what is the all-in cost of capital as a public company, and how does the public currency (stock) open doors for strategic M&A or talent retention?

The best-prepared companies treat the IPO not just as a fundraiser but as a balance-sheet transformation.

It feels like the IPO market is moving more slowly so far this year than expected. Why do you think that is? Do you expect it will pick up?

There are several factors at play, and it’s worth separating the structural from the situational.

On the situational side, the October-to-November 2025 government shutdown had a materially disruptive effect on the capital markets calendar that is still being felt. The SEC reported that issuers filed more than 900 registration statements during the shutdown, all of which required review and processing once operations resumed. That backlog doesn’t clear overnight.

Companies that had been in process for a Q4 2025 or early Q1 2026 launch found themselves delayed, recalibrating roadshow timing, and in some cases choosing to wait for the market to absorb other supply first. So, some of the slowness we’re seeing in early 2026 is the shadow of that disruption.

On the structural side, macro uncertainty 鈥� including tariff policy, interest rate trajectory, and geopolitical volatility 鈥� has raised the bar for when boards and investors feel confident enough to move forward. Companies are increasingly patient because they have deep pools of private capital supporting them. That optionality is valuable, but it also means that when uncertainty spikes, the default decision is to wait.

That said, we do expect the market to pick up, and we’re cautiously optimistic about the balance of the year. The underlying fundamentals for the IPO market are strong: 2025 demonstrated healthy investor appetite for high-quality offerings, traditional IPOs raised the most proceeds since 2021, and the backlog of IPO-ready companies entering 2026 is among the largest in a decade, with more than 800 unicorns that have now spent additional years strengthening their balance sheets and operating discipline.

As the clears its backlog and macro visibility improves, we expect activity to accelerate, particularly in AI infrastructure, software and specialty risk. The first few deals of any re-opening tend to be conservatively priced to rebuild confidence, and if those hold their post-IPO performance, the door widens for the cohort behind them.

What sorts of companies do you expect to hit the public market this year?

Based on where investor appetite is concentrated, we see the strongest IPO pipeline in several distinct sectors. AI infrastructure, including data centers, power capacity, and chip-adjacent services, leads the pack.

Physical AI: Investor demand for direct exposure to the physical layer of the AI economy is significant, and large-scale, capital-intensive businesses in this space have been able to command premium valuations. The 2025 AI infrastructure IPO set a powerful precedent: Institutional investors proved willing to underwrite capital-intensive, high-growth models when the contracted revenue visibility is strong.

AI-enabled software: This also continues to be a top investor preference. The key distinction from earlier software cycles is that investors are no longer willing to pay high multiples purely on growth. They want to see that AI is genuinely embedded in the product, that net dollar retention is strong, and that the path to margin expansion is credible. Platforms with high switching costs and essential utility are commanding the best multiples.

Insurance and specialty risk: This sector had a strong 2025, and that momentum is continuing into 2026. These businesses tend to offer the cash-flow predictability that institutional investors increasingly prize.

Industrials, aerospace and defense: These are also moving up the IPO pipeline, supported by reshoring policy tailwinds and supply-chain realignment.

How are these listings influencing the strategies of smaller and mid-cap tech companies?

It is real and somewhat sobering. High-profile listings serve as both a benchmark and a warning.

When a well-known, scaled company prices and trades well post-IPO, it recalibrates expectations across the sector, validating the category and giving smaller companies a comparable reference.

But it also raises the implied bar. Investors who have a scaled, cash-generative AI infrastructure company available at a $40 billion to $50 billion valuation will apply that lens to every software or infrastructure company in their pipeline.

Smaller companies are watching their larger peers closely and, in many cases, extending their private timelines. They use the interval to strengthen unit economics, hit profitability milestones, and build out the public company infrastructure (board composition, financial controls, investor relations capability) that institutional investors now expect to see in place on day one.

Given that 2026 has seen a massive surge in venture secondaries, is an IPO still the 鈥淕old Standard鈥� exit? Or is PwC seeing founders use secondaries to delay their IPO even further?

This is one of the most important structural questions in the private markets right now, and the honest answer is nuanced.

The IPO remains the aspirational end-state for most venture-backed companies. It provides the broadest access to capital, the most liquid currency for acquisitions and talent retention, and the clearest signal of institutional legitimacy. In that sense, it retains its status as the gold standard. But what has clearly changed is the sequencing and the role that secondaries play in getting there.

The secondary market has undergone a structural transformation. What was once considered a signal of distress 鈥� such as an insider selling before a company was 鈥渞eady鈥� for the public markets 鈥� has been normalized as a sophisticated liquidity tool.

As noted in our , nearly half of asset managers are already using continuation funds to unlock liquidity, and GP-led secondaries and continuation vehicles are now mainstream instruments. Secondary transaction volume surpassed $60 billion in 2025, and the market is projected to continue growing significantly in 2026. Secondaries are expected to remain the dominant exit route for private equity, with IPOs still accounting for only a limited share of total private equity exits.

For founders specifically, we see secondaries being used for several distinct and legitimate strategic purposes:

First, personal liquidity without forced exit timing. Founders who are a decade or more into building their companies have reasonable personal financial planning needs. Secondaries allow them to diversify without forcing the company into a public exit on a suboptimal timeline.

Second, employee retention. Extended hold periods have put pressure on the equity value of employees who joined years ago and expected a liquidity event. Secondary programs provide a release valve, allowing companies to retain talent they might otherwise lose.

Third, valuation discovery in a more forgiving setting. Private secondary pricing, while increasingly sophisticated, is still conducted without the full scrutiny of a public offering, allowing companies to establish a market-clearing price on their own terms.

What we caution founders about, however, is treating secondary access as a reason to indefinitely postpone the public markets journey. The median time to IPO for companies that went public in 2025 has reached over 11 years, the longest in a decade.

Extended private holding periods can be constructive, but they also delay price discovery, compress LP distributions, and ultimately reduce the competitive tension that keeps acquisition valuations high.

The IPO window is selective but open, and companies with the right fundamentals shouldn’t mistake the availability of secondary liquidity for permission to wait indefinitely.

Is PwC advising late-stage founders to prioritize GAAP profitability over top-line growth to satisfy the current 鈥渇light to quality鈥� among institutional investors?

We’re not advising founders to make a binary choice between growth and profitability, but we are advising them to have a credible, investor-grade answer to both.

The market signal from 2025 and into 2026 has been clear: Institutional investors are no longer willing to pay premium multiples on growth alone. The “Rule of 40,” the principle that a company’s revenue growth rate plus its profit margin should exceed 40%, and which may now be more a rule of 60, has re-emerged as a baseline screening metric for public market investors evaluating software and tech businesses.

Investors are paying a premium for scaled, cash-generative stories with clear paths to profitability. The emphasis is on paths.

GAAP profitability at the IPO date is not a requirement, but an articulated, credible, time-bound roadmap to it absolutely is.

What has changed is the tolerance for ambiguity. In 2021, investors were willing to fund a narrative about future profitability at an indefinite horizon.

Today, they want to see demonstrated progress in unit economics, such as improving gross margins, reducing customer acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue, and expanding net dollar retention, paired with a specific operating-leverage story. When do sales and marketing efficiency improve? When does R&D spend as a percentage of revenue compress? Where does operating margin land at scale? These are questions that founders must be able to answer with precision, not just aspiration.

The GAAP-versus-non-GAAP debate is also something we work through carefully with companies. Adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP operating income are widely used and accepted, but institutional investors have become more sophisticated in looking through those metrics to understand certain adjustments as a real economic cost, and to evaluate true free cash flow generation.

Companies that present GAAP financials in a clear, transparent, investor-friendly way, rather than burying them under adjustments, tend to build more durable institutional credibility.

Our practical advice to late-stage founders is this: Make sure your growth spending is efficient and that every dollar of investment is generating measurably improving unit economics.

The investors we work with are sophisticated enough to reward capital-efficient growth with premium valuations and to discount growth that appears to require permanently escalating spending to sustain it.

Governance maturity, financial reporting infrastructure, and a compelling, data-supported equity story are as important to IPO success today as the top-line numbers themselves.

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Nonetheless, the first couple months of the year have brought a steady stream of market entries from companies in sectors such as construction tech, space tech and biotech. Noticeably absent, however, are new offerings from SaaS companies, long an IPO market staple.

Per SA国际传媒 data, 11 venture- or seed-backed U.S. companies went public on major exchanges so far this year, raising just over $3 billion. Comparatively, that鈥檚 a fairly robust showing for the first couple months of the year, which tends to be a reasonably active period for IPOs.

Looking at recent years charted below, the first couple months of 2026 are well above the bottom ranks, but still far below the 2021 market peak for volume of offerings and total raised.

Leading offerings weren鈥檛 your typical VC-backed deals

The lineup of companies going public so far this year, however, includes many that don鈥檛 look like your typical VC-backed offering.

This includes the year鈥檚 largest VC-funded IPO: , a service that provides construction equipment rentals and support for building projects. The 11-year-old, Columbia, Missouri-based company raised more than $700 million in its January offering and had a recent market cap of over $7 billion.

The second-largest debut was also somewhat of an outlier: space tech company , which is majority-owned by private equity firm . It鈥檚 down from its initial trading price but recently valued around $3.4 billion.

Per SA国际传媒 data, there have been six IPOs of venture-backed companies this year that raised $200 million or more, which we list below.

SaaS squashed

It鈥檚 also noteworthy who isn鈥檛 on the list. For years, enterprise software companies have been among the more reliable IPO market entrants. This year, however, they鈥檝e been notably absent as the sector contends with an extended selloff fueled partly by concerns of AI-abetted disruption.

We鈥檙e also not seeing SaaS companies in the immediate IPO pipeline. A perusal of so far this year showed no venture-backed SaaS unicorns that submitted a new IPO filing in 2026.

It鈥檚 a sharp contrast to just a few months ago. One of last year鈥檚 splashiest IPOs 鈥� design software platform 鈥� is now down more than two-thirds from its peak. Another of the more recent big SaaS offerings 鈥� business travel and expense platform 鈥� has shed more than half its value.

Meanwhile, -backed , which provides tools for marketers and app developers, withdrew its planned IPO this month, amid the software route. It鈥檚 likely a delay, as that Liftoff filed a new confidential plan shortly afterward.

IPO market in an odd place

Overall, the IPO market is in an odd place at the moment. It鈥檚 an unfriendly scene for companies with business models viewed as vulnerable to AI-driven displacement. At the same time, there鈥檚 still continued buzz around the potential for record-setting offerings from , and .

Of those, the one rumored to be closest on the horizon is SpaceX, newly combined with at a reported $1.25 trillion valuation. The company is said to be eyeing a market debut as early as this summer.

If that happens, and the current SaaS squeeze continues, it wouldn鈥檛 be surprising to see a pattern of record-setting IPO returns coinciding with a very small number of actual debuts.

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Overall, investors put $18 billion into seed- through growth-stage rounds for companies in SA国际传媒 security and privacy categories last year. That鈥檚 up about 26% from 2024, with particularly pronounced growth at early stage.

It鈥檚 also the third-highest annual total in 10 years, as charted below.

Table of contents

• Supersized rounds boosted totals
• But overall, fewer deals got done
• Early stage outperformed, US led
• Exits were big too
• Not a lot of negative
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Supersized rounds boosted totals

A handful of supersized rounds contributed heavily to boosting annual funding tallies.

Per SA国际传媒 data, cybersecurity companies raised at least seven rounds of $400 million or more last year. Of those, two went to the year鈥檚 biggest fundraiser, AI-powered data security platform , which picked up two rounds totaling $940 million.

, provider of an identity security platform for humans and AI agents, was another investor favorite, $700 million last month at a valuation around $3 billion. And , the endpoint management automation and security provider, secured $500 million in Series C funding early in the year.

For a bigger-picture view, below we put together a list of seven of the year鈥檚 largest cybersecurity-related funding rounds.

But overall, fewer deals got done

While investment rose, deal counts declined some last year, as more capital concentrated around a handful of hot startups.

Across all stages, we saw just under 1,000 reported cybersecurity financings last year, the lowest total in at least 10 years. We expect the 2025 tally to rise slightly over time, however, due to delays in some seed rounds being added to the dataset.

Early stage outperformed, US led

Even as overall deal volume contracted, early stage posted a gain in 2025, with more than 300 reported deals. That exceeded deal count in each of the prior two years.

Early-stage investment was also particularly strong last year, with $7.5 billion invested around Series A and Series B. That鈥檚 up a whopping 63% from year-earlier levels, driven largely by heightened investor enthusiasm for deals at the intersection of AI and security.

Cybersecurity investment was also largely to U.S. companies. Per SA国际传媒 data, 74% of funding to the space last year went to U.S.-headquartered startups. These companies also generated the largest exits.

Exits were big too

That brings us to our next and final point, which is that higher cybersecurity funding also coincided with big M&A and IPO events.

For acquisitions, of course the headline deal of the year was 鈥檚 planned $32 billion acquisition of cloud security company , which has yet to be finalized.

Another megadeal came in late December, when an agreement to acquire , a provider of cyber risk management tools, for $7.75 billion in cash.

As for IPOs, the standout for 2025 was network security provider 鈥檚 September debut. The Silicon Valley company was recently valued around $6 billion.

Not a lot of negative

For a sector that prides itself on the ability to ferret out risks that others miss, cybersecurity seemed to have relatively little to fret about regarding the investment environment. For companies able to integrate AI in compelling ways, investors have plenty of capacity to write big checks, and exit markets look receptive as well.

Surely, there must be some unforeseen risk in the mix. There always is. But for now, things are still looking up.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from SA国际传媒, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Jan. 4, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

SA国际传媒 converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to SA国际传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. SA国际传媒 also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. SA国际传媒 includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the 鈥淪eries [Letter]鈥� naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a 鈥渧enture鈥� round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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Total valuations at the IPO price for these billion-dollar listings have reached $125 billion so far 鈥斅爉ore than doubling year over year.

鈥淐oming into 2025, folks were optimistic about the IPO market,鈥� said , a corporate partner at legal advisory firm who worked on the and IPOs on the issuer side and on as counsel for the underwriters.

There were a number of high-profile IPOs in 2025 before the government shutdown chilled the market, said Singh, who expects Q1 to be busier due to the hold up.

If interest rates continue to come down, he predicts a pretty good IPO market in 2026. 鈥淚t is a fairly conducive macroeconomic environment,鈥� Singh said.

In this market, 鈥渁 profitable company 鈥� particularly one that either is an AI play or has a good story of how AI will be a tailwind for their business 鈥� are good candidates for a 2026 IPO,鈥� he said.

2025 listings

Among the larger and most high-profile companies to list this year were New Jersey-based AI data center CoreWeave, San Francisco-based design platform Figma, San Francisco-based digital bank , and Sweden-based buy now, pay later fintech giant .

Among these four leading companies, CoreWeave was the best performing stock as of Dec. 16, 2025, having gained over 60% from its listing price.

Crypto valuations up

Leading sectors for the 23 U.S.-based billion-dollar listings were biotech and healthcare with six companies, blockchain and crypto with four companies, fintech with three companies, and聽 insurance and aerospace each with two companies.

The sectors overall that performed well were cryptocurrency and blockchain companies with New York-based stablecoin provider , San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange , and San Francisco-based blockchain lending firm all up from their listing prices, while New York-based crypto exchange platform lagged behind.

These 23 companies’ listing prices totaled $125 billion. That was well above the past three years, but below values seen in 2019 and 2020 before the IPO market took off in 2021.

Singh predicts in the back half of 2026 we will see some bigger listings. While there is this trend of staying private for longer, 鈥測ou can鈥檛 match public market liquidity.鈥�

鈥淭here’s still some uncertainty on valuations. As we see more of the tech IPOs go out, I think the valuations will stabilize, people will get a better sense of investor demand, and so hopefully we’ll see a more certain valuation environment,鈥� he said.

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After all, the last big boom for building American nuclear power plants was in the 1970s. Not long after that, environmental and safety concerns, project cost and broader availability of other affordable power options, among other factors, effectively brought new installations to a halt.

In VC portfolios and IPO pipelines, however, nuclear has been making a comeback.

So far this year, investors have poured close to $2 billion into an assortment of companies across stages working on nuclear power offerings outside of the fusion space 1聽curated using SA国际传媒 data. The funding influx coincides with public market offerings activity as well.

Notable funding recipients

For a sense of who鈥檚 getting funded, we put together a list of 16 good-sized rounds that closed this year for nuclear-focused startups.

The largest round is also one of the most recent: a in late November for , a developer of advanced nuclear reactor and fuel technology. led the financing for the Rockville, Maryland-based company, which is looking to build small modular reactors.

For X-energy, it helps that the 16-year-old company has attracted some high-profile partners. Currently, it聽 has projects mapped out with Dow Energy and . The startup says it plans to use some Series D funds toward beefing up its supply chain

, one of the most recognized names among nuclear startups, also landed a huge follow-on financing this year. The -founded startup $650 million in fresh funding this summer, with 鈥檚 as a backer.

The Bellevue, Washington-based company touts its Natrium technology, which it describes as an advanced nuclear reactor paired with gigawatt-scale energy storage. It began preparatory construction activities on the site of the 铿乺st plant last year and says it expects regulatory approval for the nuclear reactor next year.

We鈥檙e also seeing early-stage activity. Just this month, , a 2-year-old startup focused on building compact nuclear microreactors for remote locations, that it closed on a $96 million Series B round.

, founded in 2023, has also been a fast serial fundraiser. The El Segundo, California, company, focused on building nuclear reactors for grid-independent projects, $130 million a month ago in a Series A led by , and and joined by backers including founder .

Valar is also known for being one of the parties the over the licensing process for small reactor designs.

Exits too

Interestingly, nuclear is also an area where we are seeing both planned and actualized public-market debuts.

In the actualized category, the standout is , which develops nuclear reactors and went public last year through a merger with a SPAC launched by . It鈥檚 a pre-revenue company and had a recent market cap around $16 billion.

It鈥檚 a pretty big-number outcome, which might help explain why other SPAC deals have also popped up:

• , which wants to develop energy parks with small modular reactors to meet data center demand, announced in October to go public through a merger with the blank-check acquirer Hennessy Capital Investment Corp VII.
• , a developer of light-water micro-modular reactors, announced in September to go public through a merger with a SPAC, GigCapital7 Corp., in a $1.2 billion deal.
• , a developer of small modular nuclear plants, completed a SPAC merger in October and trades on the under the ticker symbol IMSR.

The 鈥�70s boom, redux?

For those putting their money behind expectations of a nuclear power development renaissance, it helps that the political winds are turning in their direction. In May, signed of nuclear power in the next 25 years. The act aims to speed up approvals of new projects.

These won鈥檛 mimic 1970s installations in form or purpose. They’ll likely be smaller, not always grid-connected, and conceived with an eye toward feeding the power demands of artificial intelligence. However, the hope among investors is that in terms of the quantity of power generated and new installations built, we will enter another boom era.

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Funds managed by affiliates of and , along with , , and led the investment. The San Francisco-based company has now raised just under $800 million in funding since its 2012 inception, per SA国际传媒 . Other backers include , , , and .

The latest raise follows a recent $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation, the company says. However, claim that Ripple 鈥渃ame up empty-handed鈥� after the attempt to buy back $1 billion worth of shares from employees.

Meanwhile, Ripple executives say the new fundraise follows the company鈥檚 鈥渟trongest year to date.鈥�

鈥淲e started in 2012 with one use case – payments – and have expanded that success into custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage and corporate treasury, leveraging digital assets like XRP,鈥� , Ripple CEO, said in a . 鈥淭oday, Ripple stands as the partner for institutions looking to access crypto and blockchain.鈥�

Global venture funding to financial technology startups in 2025 has, as of Nov. 5, reached $43.5 billion across 3,188 deals, per SA国际传媒 . That鈥檚 a 26.8% increase in dollars raised compared to the $34.3 billion raised across 4,214 deals during the same time period in 2024.

Growing acquisitions

It has been a busy couple of years for the fintech company. In just over two years, Ripple has , per SA国际传媒 , including two valued at over $1 billion each. Those buys helped the company expand its footprint across payments, custody and stablecoins, while entering new markets in prime brokerage and treasury management.

For example, in April, Ripple announced it was acquiring brokerage house for $1.25 billion in one of the biggest M&A deals ever in crypto.

In March, the dropped a Ripple that accused it of conducting an illegal securities offering.

It鈥檚 been a good year for the crypto sector. Shares of blockchain lender closed up 24.4% at $31.11 in first-day trading. More recently, shares have been trading in the $38 range.

And in early June, shares of closed up 168% at $83.29 in their first day of trading on the minting the stablecoin issuer with a market cap of around $16.7 billion and renewing hopes for an IPO market rebound. More recently, shares have traded in the $118 range.

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Case in point: When tech stocks and startup funding hit their last cyclical peak four years ago, few knew it was the optimal time to cease new deals and cash in liquidatable holdings.

This time around, quite a few market watchers are wondering if the tech stock and AI boom has reached bubble territory. And, as we explored in Friday鈥檚 column, there are plenty of similarities between current conditions and the 2021 peak.

Even so, by other measures we鈥檙e also in starkly different territory. The current boom is far more concentrated in AI and a handful of hot companies. The exit environment is also much quieter. And of course, the macro conditions don鈥檛 resemble 2021, which had the combined economic effects of the COVID pandemic and historically low interest rates.

Below, we look at four of the top reasons why this time is different.

No. 1: Funding is largely going into AI, while other areas aren鈥檛 seeing a boom

Four years ago, funding to most venture-backed sectors was sharply on the rise. That鈥檚 not the case this time around. While AI megarounds accumulate, funding to startups in myriad other sectors continues to languish.

Biotech is on track to capture the smallest percentage of U.S. venture investment on record this year. Cleantech investment looks poised to hit a multiyear low. And consumer products startups also remain out of vogue, alongside quite a few other sectors that once attracted big venture checks.

The emergence of AI haves and non-AI have-nots means that if we do see a correction, it could be limited in scope. Sectors that haven鈥檛 seen a boom by definition won鈥檛 see a post-boom crash. (Though further declines are possible.)

No. 2: The IPO market is not on fire

The new offering market was on fire in 2020 and 2021, with traditional IPOs, direct listings and SPAC mergers all flooding exchanges with new ticker symbols to track.

In recent quarters, by contrast, the IPO market has been alive, but not especially lively. We鈥檝e seen a few large offerings, with , and among the standouts.

But overall, numbers are way down.

In 2021, there were hundreds of U.S. seed or venture-backed companies that on or , per SA国际传媒 data. This year, there have been less than 50.

Meanwhile, the most prominent unicorns of the AI era, like and , remain private companies with no buzz about an imminent IPO. As such, they don鈥檛 see the day-to-day fluctuations typical of public companies. Any drop in valuation, if it happens, could play out slowly and quietly.

No. 3: Funding is concentrated among fewer companies

That brings us to our next point: In addition to spreading their largesse across fewer sectors, startup investors are also backing fewer companies.

This year, the percentage of startup funding going to megarounds of $100 million or more reached an all-time high in the U.S. and came close to a record global level. A single deal, OpenAI鈥檚 $40 billion March financing, accounted for roughly a quarter of聽 U.S. megaround funding.

At the same time, fewer startup financings are getting done. This past quarter, for instance, reported deal count hit the lowest level in years, even as investment rose.

No. 4: ZIRP era is long gone

The last peak occurred amid an unusual financial backdrop, with economies beginning to emerge from the depths of the COVID pandemic and ultra-low interest rates contributing to investors shouldering more risk in pursuit of returns.

This time around, the macro environment is in a far different place, with 鈥渁 鈥溾�� U.S. job market, AI disrupting or poised to disrupt a wide array of industries and occupations, a weaker dollar and a long list of other unusual drivers.

What both periods share in common, however, is the inexorable climb of big tech valuations, which brings us to our final thought.

Actually, maybe the similarities do exceed differences

While the argument that this time it鈥檚 different is a familiar one, the usual plot lines do tend to repeat themselves. Valuations overshoot, and they come down. And then the cycle repeats.

We may not have reached the top of the current cycle. But it鈥檚 certainly looking a lot closer to peak than trough.

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Sky-high public tech valuations. Booming startup investment. Sharply rising valuations. And, a few cracks emerging on the new offering front.

Sure, there are quite a few differences in the investment environment, which we鈥檒l explore in a follow-on piece. For this first installment, however, we are focusing on the commonalities, with an eye to the four highlighted above.

No. 1: Sky-high public tech valuations

First, both then and now, tech stocks hit unprecedented highs.

In mid-November 2021, the tech-heavy index hit an all-time peak above 16,000. Gains stemmed largely from sharply rising tech share prices.

Today, the is hovering not far below a new all-time high of over 23,000. The five most valuable tech companies have a of more than $16 trillion. Other hot companies, like , and have soared to record heights this year.

While private startups don鈥檛 see day-to-day valuation gyrations like publicly traded companies, their investors do take cues from public markets. When public-market bullishness subsides, private up rounds tend to diminish as well.

No. 2: Booming startup investment

In late 2021, just like today, venture investment was going strong.

Last time, admittedly, it was much stronger. Global startup funding shattered all records in 2021, with more than $640 billion invested. That was nearly double year-earlier levels. Funding surged to a broad swathe of startup sectors, with fintech in particular leading the gains.

For the first three quarters of this year, by contrast, global investment totaled a more modest $303 billion. However, that鈥檚 still on track for the highest tally in years. The core driver is, of course, voracious investor appetite for AI leaders, evidenced by 鈥檚 record-setting $40 billion financing in March.

The pace of unicorn creation is also picking up, which brings us to our next similarity.

No. 3: Up rounds and sharply rising valuations

At the last market peak, valuations for hot startups soared, driven in large part by heated competition among startup investors to get into pre-IPO rounds.

This time around, we鈥檙e also seeing sought-after startups raising follow-on rounds in quick succession, commonly at sharply escalated valuations. Per SA国际传媒 data, dozens of companies have scaled from Series A to Series C within just a couple of years, including several that took less than 12 months.

We鈥檙e also seeing prominent unicorns raising follow-on rounds at a rapid pace this year. Standouts include generative AI giants as well as hot startups in vertical AI, cybersecurity and defense tech.

No. 4: A few cracks emerging

During the 2021 market peak, even when the overall investment climate was buzzier than ever, we did see some worrisome developments and areas of declining valuations.

For that period, one of the earlier indicators was share-price deterioration for many of the initial companies to go public via SPAC. By late 2021, it had become clear that there were numerous 鈥�truly terrible performers鈥� among the cohort, including well-known names such as , and .

This time around, the new offerings market hasn鈥檛 been quite so active. But among those that did go public in recent months, performance has been decidedly mixed. Shares of , one of the hottest IPOs in some time, are down more than 60% from the peak.

Online banking provider and stablecoin platform have shown similar declines.

At this point, these are still generously valued companies by many metrics. But it鈥檚 also worth noting the share price direction in recent months has been downward, not upward.

Next: Watch for more cracks

Looking ahead, one of the more reliable techniques to determine whether we are approaching peak or already past is to look for more cracks in the investment picture. Are GenAI hotshots struggling to secure financing at desired valuations? Is the IPO pipeline still sluggish? Are public tech stocks no longer cresting ever-higher heights?

Cracks can take some time to emerge, but inevitably, they do.

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Once upon a time, tech founders built toward IPOs 鈥� not tender offers. In 1999, the median tech startup went public just five years after its founding. Today, that figure has stretched to 14 years. Instead of ringing the opening bell, founders are increasingly turning to private liquidity, keeping equity locked in private hands long past the company鈥檚 breakout success.

That shift has created a far bigger 鈥� and increasingly private 鈥� pie. In 2005, the combined value of the 50 most-valuable private U.S. tech companies was less than $5 billion. Today, that number . Over the same period, private markets have matured from niche pools into deep oceans, with global private-market assets under management surpassing 鈥� up from just $100 billion in the mid-1990s, a 150x increase.

As a result, we鈥檙e entering an era where the most transformative value 鈥� like the impact projected from AI 鈥� could be created almost entirely within private markets, widening the wealth gap between insiders and everyone else.

The long-standing objections to broader VC participation 鈥� risk, illiquidity, transparency and fees 鈥� are rapidly losing relevance.

Let鈥檚 take them one by one.

鈥榁enture capital is too risky鈥�

Risk is not monolithic. Late-stage companies such as , or look far more like mid-cap public equities than garage-stage moonshots. Investors can capture meaningful upside and diversify against individual company blow-ups by thoughtfully constructing a portfolio of 30 to 40 late-stage (post-Series C) funding rounds.

鈥楤ut it鈥檚 illiquid鈥�

Illiquidity is relative. Half of U.S. public equities are already locked in passive funds that rarely trade. Meanwhile, the private secondary market hit a record $162 billion in transaction volume in 2024 鈥� and continues to grow. Publicly registered VC funds can also hold 20% to 30% of assets in stocks or Treasuries to meet redemptions, bridging short-term liquidity needs with long-term exposure.

鈥楾here isn鈥檛 enough oversight鈥�

That鈥檚 changing. New publicly registered, evergreen VC funds, like the Innovation Fund, are subject to filings, audited financials and daily NAV disclosures.

鈥楾he fees are outrageous鈥�

Historically, yes. 2% management fees plus 20% carry were the norm. But new models are emerging. The Fundrise Innovation Fund, for instance, owns equity in nine of the 10 most well-known private U.S. tech companies 鈥� including and 鈥� and charges no carried interest, only a flat 1.85% management fee 1.

So why democratize VC now?

Momentum is finally on the side of access. In June 2025, the House passed the in a 397-12 landslide, directing the SEC to open private markets to knowledgeable investors, regardless of net worth.

The scale of the opportunity is enormous. Missing out on a $20 trillion AI wave isn鈥檛 just unfortunate 鈥� it鈥檚 locking out the majority of Americans of a generation-defining creation of wealth. Private tech also provides diversification in an era when public portfolios are dominated by the 鈥淢agnificent Seven.鈥� And with 60% of public equity assets held passively, denying those same long-term investors access to private growth feels increasingly arbitrary.

Venture capital will always carry risk 鈥� but so did buying in 1997 or in 2015. What鈥檚 changed is the timeline: Today, the lion鈥檚 share of value is created before companies ever go public.

Publicly registered VC funds are a breakthrough. They pair regulatory oversight with access to innovation, offering everyday investors a chance to participate in the upside of early-stage growth. Just as ETFs transformed public markets, these vehicles could reshape the future of private capital.

The arc of innovation bends toward abundance. It鈥檚 time for venture finance to bend with it 鈥� toward the many, not the few.

is the CEO and co-founder of , the leading direct-to-consumer alternative investments manager.

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StubHub, which operates a marketplace for tickets to live events, had priced shares for its offering at $23.50 each late Tuesday, right in the middle of the projected range. Shares closed down 6% at $22.

The offering raised $800 million for the company, whose shares are trading on the under the ticker STUB. It set an initial valuation of around $8.5 billion.

The offering has been a long-time coming for New York-based StubHub, which was founded back in 2000 with the aim of offering a centralized marketplace for reselling tickets. The startup later caught the attention of , which acquired it in 2007.

In 2019, the business sold for $4.05 billion to , a ticket marketplace founded by StubHub co-founder , who was ousted from the latter in 2004. The tie-up included backing from , and , which respectively own 25%, 12% and 9% of Class A shares in StubHub.

The IPO follows a period of modest sales growth for StubHub, which reported revenue of $828 million in the first half of this year 鈥� up about 3% from a year ago. The company posted a net loss of $76 million for the first half of the year, up from $24 million in the year-earlier period.

StubHub initially filed to go public in March but delayed its debut amid a market downturn that commenced shortly afterward. IPO activity has subsequently picked up again, with StubHub one of several larger recent debuts, including well-received entries last week by consumer fintech and blockchain lender . Concurrently, we鈥檙e also seeing heightened buzz around potential new market entrants.

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