The red 2026 IPO market potentially cooling off just a little bit as the New York Times reports that opening eyes looking to delay going public until next year.
The market debuts still dominating the headlines we saw SpaceX shares launched two weeks ago and investors are eyeing anthropics while while the venture capitalists are raising multi-billion dollar funds to back these giants everyday retail investors often feel locked out of this private market wealth generation. a publicly traded VC firm with major stakes and names that are household names including OpenAI as well as Cava and what and is actively expanding its AI infrastructure footprint through a new JV with magnetar while joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange to discuss private market exposure and the 2026 IPO landscape is really the principal at Capital.
Will great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me well, the first half of 2026 has been quite volatile, but we got the space. mega IPO and of course this morning OpenAI is in the headlines.
So what do you make of that New York Times report?
Look, I think it's definitely interesting what's happening.
I think, when the bankers pitch SpaceX is this exact idea that it's going to be the big three AI companies going public.
What I think is getting lost in the narrative as a part of sort of that sale of the IPO is that SpaceX's core business is not AI.
Selling that part of the business.
Now it's something that they could be a part of in the future and be a big player in that, and they're certainly positioned to do that, but they're not there right now.
And so I think what people are mixing them up with is everyone's asking where's the ROI from AI LLM spend.
And so people are looking at SpaceX and saying, oh my God, that's not there.
But if we're in the private markets we're seeing OpenAI, Anthropic, all these other private companies who have massive revenue increases year over year.
And I think that's where the real story is.
SpaceX has this huge infrastructure that they're selling compute for, and I think where they should be grouped is more on that AI compute and infrastructure spend, not on the AI LLM spend.
And so I think people and specifically OpenAI is waiting to have the news digest that part of the story and sort of separate SpaceX from the OpenAI and anthropic of the world.
Yes, Willie, you highlight a lot of concerns as well.
As a lot of issues that we have been focusing on when it comes to SpaceX, but when we're talking about valuation for OpenAI, how are you looking at this, especially on the heels of SpaceX?
Look, I think OpenAI is actually testing that right now with their employee tender, and it will be interesting because I'm not sure if all the employees at OpenAI want to sell shares at last round valuation.
I think the valuation is much higher than that.
So I think there's There's a testing of that right now, and I think what people will be surprised about is the valuations are much higher than that.
And Willie, you are joining me on a day when we're paying attention to artificial intelligence and what's actually happening when we're talking about the leaders as well as laggards, not just for the technology, but also the investment play.
So when it comes to the reality check for evaluation, how are you looking at it right now?
Look, I think in the private markets we are seeing.
Massive revenue increases year over year for some of these companies.
I mean, we invested in Core back in 2024, so two years ago, and back then they had RPOs of less or around $15 billion.
And so now you're seeing them do deals of that size in a single deal rather than cumulative backlog.
So I think people are spending that type of money and it's consummate with the amount of revenue that's also being generated in the private markets.
I think.
What people are really waiting to see in the public markets is some of that look through of the revenue that's being generated in the private markets.
Meanwhile, we're seeing massive valuation increases because we have that line of sight and people in the public markets just haven't had that opportunity yet.
Yes, I do want to expand on this and get your take on the impact as well as implications for smaller IPOs in the pipeline and what's coming down the pike, not just for the second half of 2026, but also looking into 2027.
Yes, I mean, so we have Lyme in our portfolio.
They're getting ready to go public, and I think that it's opening the door to a lot of different players into the space because of exactly what I mentioned, which is that the public markets are looking for that read-through of AI spends resulting in ROI or real revenue for some of these businesses.
And so I think you'll see Aura when they go public, Whoop when they go public, Canva, Lyme, all these companies who have really benefited from AI and. and being able to innovate and create new products on top of that and generate revenue, I think it will start to give that peek inside of where that ROI and revenue is actually being generated.
Yes, and speaking of peek inside, you spend time looking at the management as well as business models of these pre-IPO companies.
So what do you think is the key takeaway for you and what should retail investors keep in mind?
Look, I think retail investors feel like they're missing out on a lot of the value creation.
That's happening in the private markets and it makes sense.
I mean SpaceX went public at a $1.77 trillion valuation.
If you were looking at Google or Amazon back in the day, they went public at much lower valuations, less than $1 billion for Amazon and $23 billion for Google.
You got to ride that entire ride up to $4 trillion valuations.
I think people are looking to get access to that run up in valuation.
And so that's why Suro and now going to be Neostellar exists.
Trying to get line of sight and access to that.
And finally, I do want to get your take on what you expect will be the winners, the leaders as we move forward, especially given your insight into what's happening.
Look, I think a lot of the winners are in the private markets.
That's why we're really excited to be what we're doing and everybody's clamoring to get some amount of exposure to some of this core AI evaluation increases because that's where a lot of the money is going.
So look, I think we're really excited where we are and also.
There's people trying to find any which way to get some sort of direct exposure and so I think that's why Neostellar exists.
And finally we have about 60 seconds here and because SpaceX has actually gone public, we've been keeping a close eye on the market cap as well as the price action for the company's stock.
But given the fact that SpaceX announced the acquisition of Cursor following going public in the markets here, what did you make of that?
Look, I think SpaceX is doing something interesting, which is they have a ton of optionality because they have this very valuable asset of compute, and then they also have this opportunity to develop leading LLM capabilities and so they have that core LLM capability and they can acquire companies like Cursor who are doing a lot of revenue that have a lot of this key data to help them develop a great LLM to be competitive in the market.
And so I think what SpaceX is doing is extremely smart.
But I think it goes to exactly what I'm saying is there's all these other companies like Cursor who are 4 billion of ARR.
I mean that's incredible.
That's what we're seeing in the private markets, and SpaceX wants to have more of a foot in that race.
That totally makes sense.
Yes, and Willie, as you highlighted, some of these sums, as well as valuations are staggering when it comes to the sums.
So whether we're talking about billions or trillions, a lot to keep our eyes on.
So I appreciate your time as well as your perspective here today.
Thank you so much.
