{"id":9173,"date":"2026-06-12T03:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/before-you-cheer-the-ipo-window-watch-where-the-money-goes\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T03:12:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:12:00","slug":"before-you-cheer-the-ipo-window-watch-where-the-money-goes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/before-you-cheer-the-ipo-window-watch-where-the-money-goes\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Cheer The IPO Window, Watch Where The Money Goes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow, SpaceX<\/a> is set to list on the Nasdaq<\/a> at a fixed $135 a share<\/a>, selling 555.6 million shares for a $75 billion raise at a $1.77 trillion valuation<\/a> \u2014 the largest public offering in history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Anthropic<\/a> filed confidentially<\/a> on June 1 at a $965 billion valuation, and OpenAI<\/a> followed on June 8, eyeing a fall listing<\/a>. After four years of a venture liquidity drought, the read across the industry is simple: the IPO window is finally open again.<\/p>\n

I would be careful with that read.<\/p>\n

Look at where the money is coming from. SpaceX\u2019s raise alone is slated to be more than the $47.4 billion the entire U.S. IPO market raised in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/a> reported last week<\/a> that with brokerage cash balances low, retail investors may have to sell existing holdings to fund their SpaceX orders, with Tesla<\/a> and Bitcoin the most likely sources, and SpaceX is reserving as much as 30% of the deal, roughly $22.5 billion, for that same risk-on crowd. Crypto\u2019s own IPO pipeline stalled<\/a> this year as capital rotated toward AI. These three companies could very well be the entire 2026 IPO class.<\/p>\n

Put together, this points to a concentration event rather than a broad reopening. A small number of funds and pre-IPO sellers get liquidity, three tickers absorb the available capital and attention, and the rest of the queue waits. If you run an early-stage company, the window reopening for SpaceX does very little for you directly.<\/p>\n

The acquisition outlook<\/h2>\n

What these listings do change is more durable, and it runs through M&A.<\/p>\n

A public SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic become some of the best-capitalized acquirers on the planet, with liquid stock to spend. OpenAI has already closed roughly half a dozen acquisitions this year<\/a>, nearly matching its full 2025 total, and AI dealmaking across the market rose about 90% year over year<\/a> in the first quarter. The vast majority of venture exits have always been acquisitions; these offerings deepen the pool of buyers far more than they shorten the IPO queue.<\/p>\n

For founders, that reframes the goal. Don\u2019t build for an IPO window that was only ever open to a handful of companies. Build to be the company a newly public AI giant needs to own: real ownership of a workflow, proprietary data that compounds, the testing and evaluation infrastructure these labs increasingly run on, or a wedge into a market one of these platforms wants to enter. At the seed stage, the exit math has always pointed toward a single meaningful acquisition, and this wave widens the set of acquirers who can write that check.<\/p>\n

For investors, the discipline is to not mistake a concentration event for a market that has reopened. The liquidity \u2014\u00a0and the distributions LPs have spent four years waiting on \u2014\u00a0will land with a narrow set of names. Most portfolios still get liquid the way they always have, through M&A, and the health of that market matters more to the median fund than whether SpaceX trades up on day one.<\/p>\n

The test comes this fall. If the retail bid holds and the next tier of the queue prices well, Friday really will be the start of a broad reopening. Watch those follow-on listings, and watch what three newly public companies do with their stock over the next year. That second part is what reaches the rest of the market.<\/p>\n

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As the co-founder and managing partner of MGV<\/a>, Marc Schr\u00f6der<\/a> is committed to establishing MGV as the premier venture firm for world-class tech entrepreneurs to accelerate their visions. Under Schr\u00f6der\u2019s stewardship, MGV has swiftly ascended to a top-quartile firm, surpassing the performance of 95% of venture funds. The performance of MGV is driven by Schr\u00f6der\u2019s unique approach to venture investing \u2014 that providing intensive sales training, devising robust fundraising strategies and securing follow-on investments is the best way to support founders and drive the deepest return for investors. Business Insider<\/a> has recognized him as one of the Top 100 global seed investors, and his perspectives are published regularly in Crunchbase News and other leading publications.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related Crunchbase query:<\/h2>\n