The company is a marketing analytics platform that acts as an independent referee of sorts to track which digital ads actually drive mobile app downloads and in-app purchases. It helps companies measure their return on ad spend while claiming to protect user privacy and block ad fraud.

While AppsFlyer CEO and co-founder declined to comment on specific deal details, he did confirm to Axios that , , and each took a minority stake in the San Francisco-based startup.

AppsFlyer’s most recent raise before this was in 2020. With the latest round, the company has now raised $1.3 billion in known funding since its 2011 inception, per .

Previous backers include , 1, , and .

“They believe what we believe: that attribution and measurement must be independent, unbiased and trusted,” Kaniel was quoted as saying of AppsFlyer’s newest investors. “As AI takes over more of how advertising gets bought and optimized, the signals feeding those systems become the most consequential infrastructure in the industry.”

He added that the company is eyeing the public markets, calling the financing “a step on that path.”

So far in 2026, companies in sales, marketing and CRM categories have pulled in around $4.1 billion globally in seed- through growth-stage funding, per 91��Ʒ . That puts the space on track to come in roughly flat with or a bit up from the prior three years — when annual funding hovering around the $8 billion mark — though still far below boom-era levels, when sales and marketing investment topped $20 billion. Notably, many of the startups funded in recent quarters have been AI-focused, with many of them offering agentic tools and automation in areas such as sales, marketing and customer experience management.

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Globally, robotics startups have so far raised $18.8 billion in 2026, compared to $15 billion in the full year of 2025. The figure also handily surpasses the $14.1 billion raised in the peak venture funding year of 2021, and we still have more than six months of fundraising left.

The impressive rise in funding reflects a marked shift in perception among venture investors about the robotics sector, which was traditionally considered an expensive, asset-heavy hardware gamble. In particular, investors appear to be drawn to startups working on embodied AI, or artificial intelligence with a physical body that interacts with the real world in real time.

Noteworthy recent rounds

The surge in funding is driven by a number of robotics-focused startups raising considerable capital from investors this year. Also, interestingly, two of the five largest raises in 2026 to date have been by Austin-based companies.

Topping the list of largest deals in 2026 so far is Austin-based , a defense tech startup focused on autonomous sea vessels. In March, the 4-year-old company raised $1.75 billion in Series D funding, bringing its total funding to around $2.6 billion. led the round, which set Saronic’s valuation at $9.25 billion — more than double its Series C level in 2025.

Earlier this month, Germany’s , a developer of AI infrastructure for robots to learn, collaborate and operate across real-world environments, said it secured up to $1.4 billion in Series C funding. led that raise.

In January, , a robotics company building an “omni-bodied” brain to operate any robot for any task, announced that it had raised $1.4 billion, tripling its valuation to over $14 billion. That financing came just over seven months after Skild raised at a $4.5 billion valuation. led the startup’s latest round, which included participation from , ’s venture capital arm.

On June 15, Beijing-based , which creates water robots and intelligent unmanned equipment, raised $1 billion in a massive Series A round led by .

And in February, AI-powered robotics company raised $520 million in an extension of its $415 million Series A raise in February 2025, bringing the total round to over $935 million. Existing backers , , and joined new investors, including and manufacturing giant in participating in the extension.

Interestingly, spinout has already raised two rounds in 2026. In March, the Palo Alto, California-based startup closed on a $500 million Series A round, co-led by and . Then in May, it raised another $400 million in a financing led by . The company is developing an AI-enabled industrial robotics platform focused on automating industrial and manufacturing tasks at scale.

Exits

While mergers and acquisitions have been relatively robust with several strategic buyouts, the robotics IPO landscape is a bit quieter, particularly in the U.S.

In China, however, a number of robotics companies have recently gone public. The of , targeting a $3 billion to $7 billion valuation, was considered a milestone for the industry. In March, the company filed for an to list on the , and its IPO was widely expected to spur other startups in the space to pursue their own public-market debuts.

, a startup based in China’s Shandong province that makes lightweight industrial robots, in May listed on the , raising about $86 million. And it did not disappoint. Robotphoenix closed its first full day of trading at HK$53.75 ($6.86 U.S.), up nearly 80%, though shares have dipped to the HK$37 range more recently.

On the M&A front, a number of Big Tech and automotive giants have been aggressively acquiring embodied AI and humanoid talent to anchor their physical automation strategies.

In February, AI-powered supply chain provider acquired , an Austin-based maker of autonomous forklifts and lift trucks.

Skild AI in April that it had picked up the robotics arm of in an effort to deploy its technology to warehouses.

And in May, tech giant entered the humanoid robotics field directly by acquiring San Diego-based . The team was absorbed into Meta’s Superintelligence Labs unit to accelerate training of its foundational physical AI model.

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So far in 2026, U.S. companies have pulled in nearly 80% of global seed- through growth-stage financing, per 91��Ʒ data. That’s a sharp divergence from the years leading up to the AI boom, when American companies typically secured less than half of all investment.

Gap for AI is even more pronounced

The U.S. share of artificial intelligence-related investment is even greater.

So far this year, nearly 88% of AI-related startup funding, or $319 billion, went to U.S.-headquartered companies, per 91��Ʒ data. Of that, most went to just two recipients, and .

Since both Anthropic and OpenAI are on track for public market debuts later this year, it’s possible next year’s comps will be less lopsided, as they won’t be raising any more giant late-stage financings. We’ll see.

Large venture hubs outperform small and mid-sized ones

Although no other country comes close to the U.S. for startup funding, a few of the larger technology investment hubs are seeing year-over-year gains.

Funding to China’s startups, in particular, is on the rise after several sluggish years. So far in 2026, startups have raised over $33 billion, per 91��Ʒ data, already surpassing the total for all of 2025.

The United Kingdom is also looking up. U.K.-based startups have pulled in $16.5 billion so far this year, compared to $19.5 billion in all of 2025. AI and fintech are the country’s leading sectors for investment.

Other mid-sized venture markets are seeing funding levels this year that are on track to be flat or moderately higher year over year, per 91��Ʒ data. In Europe, this includes France, Spain and Germany.

In Asia, India, Japan and South Korea are also neither way up nor way down. Canada and Australia, meanwhile, aren’t in a slump but also aren’t seeing any major AI-focused funding raised this year.

Maybe it’s a US bubble?

Now that more than three-fourths of startup funding is going to U.S. companies, it seems timely to note that the country is home to only a little over 4% of the global population.

On the tech startup front, it’s undoubtedly an impressive 4%. The U.S. has an unrivaled track record for building leading technology companies, along with the capital and talent to keep on doing so.

That said, certain trends do warrant some serious bubble consideration. The anomalously high concentration of startup funding into American companies is one of them.

Surely many of the countries in which the remaining 96% of people on Earth dwell possess entrepreneurial talent, infrastructure and economic might that could support more than just a measly 12% share of AI startup funding. If one was a betting type, it’s hard not to argue that the odds for that look pretty good.

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The IPO��caps a remarkable journey for a company that raised nearly $12 billion in private investment since its founding in 2002 to become the world’s most valuable venture-backed startup with a most recent private-market valuation of $1.25 trillion. Along the way, SpaceX helped redefine both the space industry and the late-stage venture market.

Its long-awaited offering raised some $75 billion and served as��an enormous liquidity event for Musk, who became the as a result, as well as his close friend and confidant of , who now owns a stake valued at more than $68 billion in SpaceX. It’s also a massive and successful exit for early venture and corporate investors including , , , and .

SpaceX’s offering was unconventional along several fronts. Along with the IPO’s record-breaking nature — more than 10x larger than ’s $104 billion offering in 2012 — the company also by setting a fixed price of $135 per share, rather than the traditional approach whereby investors and bookbuilders determine a range based on demand.

Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX is also wildly unprofitable. The company posted a net loss of $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up more than 700% from a year ago. Revenue totaled $4.69 billion in Q1, up 15% from a year ago. Its megacap valuation means it’s slated to trade at an aggressive premium of 94x revenue.

The SpaceX offering is the first in a lineup of at least three historic IPOs this year, with generative AI giants and openly racing to make it to the public markets in coming months. Altogether, the three IPOs transfer some $3 trillion in value from the private to public markets.

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Meanwhile, filed on June 1 at a $965 billion valuation, and followed on June 8, . After four years of a venture liquidity drought, the read across the industry is simple: the IPO window is finally open again.

I would be careful with that read.

Look at where the money is coming from. SpaceX’s raise alone is slated to be more than the .

that with brokerage cash balances low, retail investors may have to sell existing holdings to fund their SpaceX orders, with 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’s own this year as capital rotated toward AI. These three companies could very well be the entire 2026 IPO class.

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.

The acquisition outlook

What these listings do change is more durable, and it runs through M&A.

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, nearly matching its full 2025 total, and AI dealmaking across the market 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.

For founders, that reframes the goal. Don’t 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.

For investors, the discipline is to not mistake a concentration event for a market that has reopened. The liquidity —��and the distributions LPs have spent four years waiting on —��will 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.

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.

As the co-founder and managing partner of , is committed to establishing MGV as the premier venture firm for world-class tech entrepreneurs to accelerate their visions. Under Schröder’s 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 Schröder’s unique approach to venture investing — 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. has recognized him as one of the Top 100 global seed investors, and his perspectives are published regularly in 91��Ʒ News and other leading publications.

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Checking in five months later, the space continues to sizzle from a startup funding standpoint, even though public markets have pulled back from the space in recent days. So far in 2026, investors have poured around $10.7 billion into seed through pre-IPO rounds for companies in 91��Ʒ’s semiconductor category. That puts funding on track to eclipse last year’s levels.

Noteworthy recent rounds

Beyond , which went public last month after securing a $1 billion February pre-IPO round, a number of semiconductor-focused startups are raising considerable investor capital this year. Using 91��Ʒ data, we put together a list of the 10 largest venture funding recipients.

One of the three largest fundraisers after Cerebras is , a developer of chips customized for the large model needs of AI labs. The Silicon Valley startup raised a $500 million Series B in February led by and .��

Another moving up the ranks is , which also secured $500 million in a March Series E financing led by . The San Jose, California-based company is an AI infrastructure startup focused on optics technology, with strategic backers including and .��

, a startup working on chips for AI superintelligence, reportedly also secured $500 million in new funding early this year. led the financing, which was said to set a $5 billion valuation for the Silicon Valley-based company.

The Cerebras factor

For now, the market fate of AI chip and infrastructure developer weighs heavily over the semiconductor startup space.

The Silicon Valley company’s massive IPO last month raised over $5 billion and saw shares soar in first-day trading. Since then, 11-year-old Cerebras has been heading lower, with shares down about a third from the initial closing price.��

Still, it’s far from a slacker. With a recent market cap around $50 billion, paired with rapidly rising revenues, Cerebras is finding plenty of investor support for its pitch that it is building “the fastest AI infrastructure in the world.”����

High AI valuations and enthusiasm give sector a boost

Broadly, semiconductor startups are benefiting from the more widespread investor enthusiasm around the growth of AI and their continued support for the massive infrastructure outlays it requires.

That’s visible in the public markets as well, with semiconductor indices trading near all-time highs, a pullback in recent days notwithstanding. Chip designer Nvidia, meanwhile, remains the world’s most valuable public company.

The semiconductor industry is also young enough that most of today’s industry behemoths began as venture-backed startups. And given the rich history of innovative upstarts unseating leading players in this space, no one is doubting the chances of that storyline repeating.

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and each launched multibillion-dollar deployment ventures staffed with forward-deployed engineers, while a long list of startups building AI infrastructure, autonomous software and robotics also reached unicorn status. Together, the new entrants point to where investors increasingly see value creation: turning AI advances into real-world applications and pairing software intelligence with physical automation.

Beyond AI, new unicorns were minted across many sectors including healthcare, quantum, aerospace, financial services, manufacturing, e-commerce and energy.��

China dominated in the robotics sector, while Canada did so in quantum. The single new legaltech unicorn last month was from Brazil. also joined the board this past month, as the adult creator content company raised its first external financing.��

Of the new unicorns, 17 are U.S-based, while four each are based in China and the UK. Two new unicorns joined the board from Canada, as one each from India and Brazil.��

Unicorn IPOs

The board’s total value is undergoing rapid fluctuations amid lofty new valuations for some of the largest new unicorns, as well as high-profile exits to the public markets.

The 91��Ʒ reached $9.9 trillion in value in May, as Anthropic moved ahead of OpenAI to become the second most valued private company after . On the heels of the funding, Anthropic privately filed for an IPO, followed shortly thereafter by OpenAI’s .��

SpaceX is expected to list this Friday, in what would be the largest-ever IPO. Its listing will erase more than one-tenth of value from the board as the the -led company exits the private markets.��

Chip company went public in May in a blockbuster IPO that valued the company at $56.4 billion,��well above its last private valuation of $23 billion just three months earlier in February.��

New unicorns in May

Here are May’s new unicorn companies, including 10 companies that are less than 3-years old:��

AI deployment

• San Francisco-based raised a $4 billion private equity round led by with co-leads , and . The new company is majority owned by with partnerships with 19 investment firms and consultancies. OpenAI acquired , with its 150 forward-deployed engineers to support enterprises in this effort. The less than 1-year-old-based company was valued at $14 billion in the new funding, which it said will be used to scale operations and acquire companies.��
• raised a $1.5 billion private equity funding to build an AI services company to work with companies to bring Claude into their operations. Each of the co-leads — , private equity investor and legal firm —��invested $300 million into the round. and also invested in the joint venture. The less than 1-year-old-based, San Francisco-based company’s valuation was not disclosed.
• , a company building search for AI agents, raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.2 billion and is used by coding agents, go-to-market agents and chat agents.��
• Boston-based autonomous AI software developer raised a $200 million Series A led by . Blitzy’s platform reverse engineers existing code bases to build a knowledge graph and thereby enable autonomous development of software projects over days or weeks that can re-engineer and test complicated systems and deal with technical debt. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion and is said to be used by dozens of global 2,000 companies.��
• , a routing technology for applications to select from 400-plus models, raised a $113 million Series B led by Alphabet’s . Investors in the round included a host of corporate venture firms including , , , and . The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

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• raised a $700 million Series A led by . The company plans to build personalized robotics developing its own models, training and hardware. The 1-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $6 billion. It was founded by CEO , founder of humanoid robotics unicorn .
• Guangdong, China-based , a dual arm robotics developer, raised a $147 million Series B led by and . It said its new funding will be used for R&D, production and a global sales network. The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.��

• Shanghai-based has raised four funding rounds since it was spun out of in January, and reached a valuation of $1 billion. Agilink is focused on dexterous hand technology. The funding will be used for model development, data and hardware with the spinout able to license to the broader robotics market.��
• , a robot leasing and rental platform, raised a Series A funding. The less than 1-year-old Pudong, China-based company was valued at $1 billion. It is looking to expand from event rentals to warehousing, logistics and park operations.��

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• , a treatment provider for cardiovascular and orthopedic disease, raised a $1.5 billion corporate round led by . Boston Scientific has an option to acquire its heart valve technology. The 10-year-old Georgia, U.S.-based company was valued at $4.4 billion.��
• , a longevity biotech company, seeking to extend human life by a decade, with therapeutics targeting age related disease raised the initial close of funding round led by . The 5-year-old Redwood City, California-based company was valued at a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion.��
• , launched a suite of AI agents for healthcare built from its clinical data, raised $146 million in equity and secondary funding led by . The 15-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Quantum computing

• Vancouver-based , a quantum computing company that combines silicon-based qubits with native photonic interconnects, raised a $70 million extension funding led by Luxembourg-based . Photonic raised $130 million in January. The 9-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
• Quebec-based , which says it addresses quantum error correction in each qubit, raised a $30 million funding. The company has raised a mix of government grants and venture capital. The 6-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.

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• , a builder of rockets to deploy data centers in space, raised a $305 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old San Carlos, California-based company, formerly called Aetherflux, was valued at $2 billion. The company plans to launch its first satellite later this year. Its technology entails using the upper stage of the rocket as a low-earth orbit satellite that uses solar energy to create 1-megawatt data centers in space.��
• Hyderabad, India-based , a rocket company that delivers satellites into space, raised a $60 million funding led by Singapore-based and Menlo Park, California-based . Skyroot is planning the maiden voyage of Vikram-1 in June. The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Financial services��

• , an AI insurance provider for startups, raised a $160 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion and plans to go after the trucking industry next.��
• Intelligent wealth management platform raised a $150 million Series D led by . With in recruited assets, it is built to create an all in one system for advisors. The 7-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

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• , a manufacturer of aerospace and defense components, raised a $300 million Series B led by . The 1-year-old El Segundo, California-based company, which aims to strengthen America’s industrial base, operates six factories across the U.S. and was valued at $1 billion.
• , likewise says it is building out American manufacturing with a rapid custom manufacturing software to production platform. It raised its first institutional funding of $110 million led by , and founders and . The 7-year-old Reno, Nevada-based company supports small-scale inventors to large-scale enterprises and has shipped 30 million parts to 300,000 customers. The company was valued at $1 billion.

E-commerce

• , a real-time inventory management platform, raised a $170 million Series B led by and . Its sensor technology tracks items and its precise location and movement in the store. Retail customers include and . The 13-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

• London-based , a booking service for hair salons, beauty experts and wellness salons raised a $80 million Series C led by . The 11-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.

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• , a nuclear fusion startup spun out of Tsinghua University, raised a $74 million Series A funding. The 4-year-old China-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a provider of fast charging batteries, raised a $60 million Series C led by strategic investor . The batteries are used in data centers, robotics, electric vehicles and grid infrastructure. The 7-year-old Cambridge, UK-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Social media��

• Creator platform raised its first external funding, a $535 million private equity round led by , which now owns around 16% of the company. The 10-year-old London-based adult content platform was valued at $3.2 billion. Its CEO noted the company has paid out since 2016.

Data center��

• Modular data center builder raised a $230 million Series B led by , and. In partnership with the company plans to build capacity for secure data centers useful for military and remote manufacturing environments. The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.2 billion. Customer booking for fiscal year 2026 was up 540% from 2025.��

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• São Paulo-based , a Brazilian AI legal platform to manage company litigation, raised a $100 million Series B led by that valued the 2-year-old company at $1.2 billion. Enter counts , and among its customers, who use its technology along with law firms to handle litigation paperwork and settlements. Around have been managed through the platform. led the Series A.

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• , a digital asset trader, raised a $150 million funding led by , UK bank Standard Charter’s fintech arm. The deal brings digital assets into banking and represents GSRs first strategic external investor. The 12-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.��

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• , a security platform built for an open-source automated coding environment, raised a $60 million Series C led by . The platform is adopted by companies including Anthropic, , , , and and supports 27,000 organizations. Its socket firewall product is free to block malicious packages. The 6-year-old Stanford, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Related 91��Ʒ unicorn lists:��

• (1,785)
• (619)
• (160)
• (189)
• (118)
• (102)
• (921)
• (525)
• (241)
• (39)
• (486)

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Methodology

The 91��Ʒ 91��Ʒ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on 91��Ʒ data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.��

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.��

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .��

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.��

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. 91��Ʒ 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 91��Ʒ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

All told, global venture funding reached $92 billion in May, marking the second-largest monthly total on record, just behind February, 91��Ʒ data shows. Of that, Anthropic raised $50 billion��1 , or 54% of the month’s total funding.

Startup funding was up 284% year over year from $24 billion, per 91��Ʒ data.

The month also had a successful IPO for a venture-backed company as chip company Cerebras, which has benefited from growing demand for AI inference, went public at the upper end of its range at $185 per share and opened at $350. The stock is currently trading around $225 as of June 2, which values the company at just over $49 billion.

On the valuation front, Anthropic rocketed ahead of on The 91��Ʒ 91��Ʒ as it became the second-most highly valued private company at $965 billion, just behind at $1.25 trillion. Just months earlier in February, Anthropic was valued at $380 billion. The board has shot up in value in recent months and has 1,780 companies altogether valued at $9.9 trillion as of the end of May.

Billions more

Last month, a further $17 billion was raised by 10 companies in rounds of $500 million and above. They include defense tech unicorn , which raised $5 billion, and China-based AI labs and , which each raised more than $2 billion having raised rounds earlier this year. Automated coding lab raised $1 billion, and , which develops AI for customer service, raised $950 million in a single round.

Funding to the AI sector totaled $72 billion, or 79% of funding, last month.

The boom funds itself

The Cerebras IPO sets the stage for further public listings, including potentially record-setting ones.

SpaceX publicly filed its prospectus in May, stating its intention to raise $80 billion via its IPO. The space tech giant has raised $9.4 billion in equity funding to date, per 91��Ʒ.

Anthropic, which is set to beat OpenAI to the public markets after filing its confidential IPO paperwork on June 1, has raised $125 billion in equity funding thus far, compared with its rival’s roughly $180 billion in private funding.

The private markets in 2026 have raised capital at a greater pace than ever before, thanks to�� larger rounds, faster follow-on fundings and record-breaking valuations. At the same time, if SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI all list this year, as they’ve said they intend to, the resulting liquidity could be the largest in market history, pouring hundreds of billions back into the hands of startup investors who will redeploy it into the next wave of private companies.

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• Anthropic Nears $1T Valuation And Leapfrogs OpenAI On 91��Ʒ With $65B Funding Round

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from 91��Ʒ, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of June 2, 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. 91��Ʒ 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 91��Ʒ 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. 91��Ʒ 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. 91��Ʒ 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 “Series [Letter]” 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 “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

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The statement was light on details and did not specify the planned offering size or where it will list. For its most recent funding round, a $65 billion Series H funding announced last week, the San Francisco company more than doubled its post-money valuation to a staggering $965 billion.

With that round, Anthropic also surpassed its closest rival, , in terms of last reported valuation. In February, OpenAI announced it had closed a $110 billion round at an $840 billion post-money valuation.

Anthropic has now raised roughly $125 billion from investors, per 91��Ʒ data.

The path to the public markets

The IPO filing marks an escalation in the race among generative AI behemoths to make it first to the public market. That said, it could still be while.

Before making its market debut, Anthropic must still receive a sign-off from securities regulators on its confidential filing. After that, it will need to submit its public filing, carry out its pre-IPO roadshow, and put the remaining pieces in place for an offering of this presumed magnitude.

How long could it take? It’s unclear, of course, but if we use as a proxy, things could proceed briskly. SpaceX, which is reportedly seeking a valuation of $1.8 trillion or more, submitted its confidential filing on April 1. The company is expected to begin trading this month, with multiple reports citing June 12 as the target date.

If Anthropic follows a similar timeline, we could potentially see a market debut in August. Before that, however, will be the public filing of its IPO prospectus, which will offer a long-awaited peek under the hood at Anthropic’s famously fast revenue growth and the scope of the capital expenditures it has taken to get there.

As someone who has used the word boring in IPO market headlines many times in the past, one thing that can assuredly be said is that word no longer applies.

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Related reading:

• Anthropic Nears $1T Valuation And Leapfrogs OpenAI On 91��Ʒ With $65B Funding Round
• OpenAI’s New $110B Raise At A $840B Valuation Marks The Largest Venture Deal Ever

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Every year for the past several years, the same prediction circulates: This is the year the IPO market comes back. We said it in 2025. We said it in 2026. We’ll probably say it again in 2027.

And every year, a handful of headline-grabbing offerings get held up as proof. This cycle it’s , and . The narrative writes itself: the window is open, the giants are listing, the market is back.

But here’s the catch: those aren’t IPOs for the rest of the market. They’re exceptions to a rule that has been hardening for 30 years.

The IPO market isn’t closed. It’s shrinking.

The instinct is to treat the IPO drought as cyclical, a consequence of rate hikes, market volatility or investor risk appetite. Fix the macro, the thinking goes, and the listings follow.

The data doesn’t support that story.

In 1996, more than 8,000 companies were listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Today, fewer than 4,000 are, even as the U.S. economy has tripled in size.

The bar to go public has moved in one direction.

In 1980, the median company went public with around $64 million in revenue in today’s dollars. Today, the typical IPO candidate has revenue that would have made it a mid-cap public company a generation ago.

The result: Companies are staying private far longer, and the liquidity that shareholders were counting on keeps getting pushed out.

Every time the IPO window “reopens,” it reopens at a higher threshold than before. Waiting for conditions to return to historical norms isn’t a strategy. It’s a bet against a structural trend that has outlasted every rate cycle, bull market and recovery in recent memory.

The companies left behind

When the bar rises high enough, it doesn’t just delay IPOs. It eliminates them.

There are thousands of private companies in the United States today with $50 million, $100 million, $200 million in annual revenue, with continued growth. Previously, companies at that scale formed the backbone of the public markets. Today they’re still private, and most will stay that way.

Not all of them are great businesses. Some raised at 2021 peak valuations and are quietly running out of runway. But a real subset has grown past the early venture stage. They have revenue, margins and years of operating history. The IPO was supposed to be the exit. For most of them, it won’t be.

Who’s actually suffering

Employees at these companies made a bet: below-market salaries, equity instead of cash, years of building. Their equity was supposed to be liquid by now. It isn’t. Meanwhile, life has continued: mortgages, children, aging parents, career crossroads.

I lived this at . When I left, exercising my options triggered a tax bill I couldn’t afford without finding liquidity for shares I didn’t know how to sell. The market for these shares exists in theory. In practice it’s opaque, fragmented and slow. A transaction that should take weeks can take months, if it closes at all.

Venture general partners are in a different bind. Their funds are locked in companies with no exit path. Distributed to Paid-In capital is near historic lows. Limited partners who expected returns from prior vintage funds are still waiting, either holding back re-commitments or concentrating capital into the megafunds that can generate deal flow regardless of exit conditions. The mid-tier manager without DPI is struggling to raise.

A small number of the most prominent companies can run tender offers, giving employees a company-sponsored, structured opportunity to sell their shares.

For everyone else, there are brokered secondary marketplaces that work, slowly and imperfectly, for a narrow slice of the most in-demand names. According to , 90% of all venture secondary volume was concentrated in just 15 companies last quarter. For the rest, the market barely functions.

We’ve been here before

This situation has a historical parallel most people in finance have forgotten.

In the late 1800s, the was the only legitimate listing venue, and it was selective. Hundreds of real companies couldn’t meet the requirements, so brokers took matters into their own hands. They gathered on Broad Street, outside the NYSE, and began trading unlisted stocks on the curb. Literally on the sidewalk. It was chaotic, informal, fragmented. No centralized pricing. No standardized process. No real infrastructure.

But the companies were real. And the demand was real.

Over time, the curb traders organized. They moved indoors. They built rules and infrastructure. The Curb Market became the . The companies that traded there weren’t defective, the system was.

The private secondary market today looks a lot like that sidewalk. Fragmented brokers. Inconsistent pricing. Transactions that depend on who you know. The companies being traded are real. The demand is real. The infrastructure doesn’t exist yet, but it’s coming. Markets that serve real economic needs don’t stay informal forever.

The original Curb Market didn’t fail. It grew up. What’s happening in private secondaries today will do the same. The only variable is timing, and the shareholders waiting on liquidity are the ones absorbing the cost of that delay.

�� is the founder of and managing partner of Earlyasset Capital, where he is building infrastructure for and investing in the venture secondary market. Earlier in his career, he was part of the original founding team at .

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• The IPO Window Won’t Stay Open On Its Own
• Forecast: 2024 Was Slow For Tech IPOs, But 2025 Could Be Different
• 91��Ʒ Predicts: IPOs Picked Up In 2025 And The Outlook For 2026 Is Even More Optimistic

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