SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs in 2026: What Pre-IPO Investors Need to Know

SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq on 12 June 2026, in what has become the largest initial public offering in history, raising US$75 billion and closing its first day of trading above a US$2 trillion valuation. Anthropic and OpenAI followed suit within the same fortnight, each confidentially filing IPO paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission without committing to a listing date. For wholesale and sophisticated investors who built pre-IPO positions in any of the three companies, the sequence has become a live test of whether private market pricing survives contact with public markets.

So far that test is cutting two different ways. SpaceX's debut significantly rewarded early investors. OpenAI's filing has drawn a harder-edged response, with PitchBook's research arguing its valuation has detached from the underlying business. Anthropic currently sits somewhere between the two, and understanding the difference between these three outcomes matters far more than treating them as one undifferentiated "AI IPO wave."

The scale that changed the conversation

In 2025, global IPO proceeds reached US$171.8 billion across 1,293 listings, a 39% increase on the prior year according to EY's Global IPO Trends report. EY also flagged a potential "mega wave" of AI-driven listings building through 2026, naming GenAI companies as candidates well before any of them moved toward public markets. Set against that backdrop, SpaceX's US$75 billion raise alone is equivalent to nearly half of everything raised in IPOs globally across the entire prior year.

Industry analysts are calling this the AI IPO wave, and the title is precise about one thing: three of the most valuable private companies in the world moved toward public markets within the same month. Each one tests a different part of the pre-IPO thesis that platforms like NonPublic, which lists SpaceX and OpenAI among its previous investments, have been built on.

What SpaceX's listing actually showed

SpaceX priced 555.6 million Class A shares at US$135 each on 11 June, valuing the company at roughly US$1.78 trillion. Shares opened the next morning at US$150 and closed 19% up on the day at around US$161, placing SpaceX's market value at roughly US$2.1 trillion and making it the sixth-largest publicly traded company in the United States.

The repricing happened fast. SpaceX moved from roughly US$800 billion in a private secondary sale in December 2025, to US$1.25 trillion by February 2026 once Elon Musk's xAI was folded into the business, to nearly double that December price by the time public market investors could finally buy shares in June. All of that price movement occurred while the stock was off-limits to anyone outside the private market.

The underwriters, led by Goldman Sachs with Morgan Stanley running the stabilisation process, allocated an unusually large share of the offering to individual investors, reportedly around 20% to 30% against the typical IPO allocation of 5% to 10%. Even with the expanded retail allocation, demand outstripped supply badly enough that some retail applicants received only single-digit share counts against requests many times that size.

By the time a company of this magnitude reaches a public exchange, the available float is small relative to demand, and the price already reflects months of anticipation built while the company was private. When SpaceX published its prospectus on 20 May, it gave investors their first audited look at the business: consolidated 2025 revenue of US$18.7 billion, up 33% on the prior year, against a net loss of US$4.94 billion and adjusted EBITDA of US$6.58 billion, with Starlink rather than the launch business doing most of the financial work. Most of the repricing between December and June happened before SpaceX shares were available to buy on an exchange at all. This outcome belongs to this one listing rather than serving as a guide to how OpenAI's or Anthropic's eventual debuts will price.

OpenAI and Anthropic are filing, not listing

A confidential IPO filing and an actual listing date are two different things, often separated by months. Since 2017 the SEC has allowed companies to submit draft registration statements for confidential review before committing to go public. A company can withdraw at any point during that process without filing publicly, and once it decides to proceed, the registration statement becomes public on the SEC's EDGAR system no later than 15 days before the roadshow begins.

That detail matters for anyone reading headlines about Anthropic and OpenAI as though a listing is imminent. Anthropic confidentially submitted its filing on 1 June 2026, days after closing a US$65 billion funding round at a US$965 billion valuation that eclipsed OpenAI's valuation for the first time. OpenAI followed roughly a week later, targeting a valuation above US$850 billion off the back of a US$122 billion round in March, anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, that valued the company at US$852 billion.

Both filings are real. The actual listing timeline for either company can still be months away.

Where the valuations break apart

PitchBook's AI Business Quality framework, built specifically to evaluate the leading AI companies ahead of their expected 2026 listings, scores each one on fundamentals rather than headline valuation. The results expose a clear gap.

OpenAI scores 4.8 out of 10 on that framework, the weakest of the group despite carrying the highest valuation. At US$852 billion, that works out to roughly US$177.5 billion paid for every point of business quality, around 11.8 times what investors are paying for the same quality in Databricks, which trades at roughly US$15 billion per quality point and is the only one of the group generating positive free cash flow.

The underlying business explains the gap. OpenAI generated US$5.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026 while spending US$2.22 for every dollar earned, a negative 122% adjusted operating margin. Justifying the current valuation would require US$95 billion to US$105 billion in free cash flow by 2030. Based on current trajectory, OpenAI is pointing toward a loss of US$10 billion to US$30 billion in that year instead.

Much of any path to profitability rests on a renegotiated revenue-sharing agreement with Microsoft. Under the revised terms, payments are subject to a cap through 2030 rather than tied to OpenAI's technology progress, with the cap most widely cited at US$38 billion against an uncapped trajectory that could otherwise have run substantially higher.

Anthropic reads differently. Its estimated annual recurring revenue run-rate sits around US$47 billion against OpenAI's reported US$25 billion to US$33 billion. Enterprise market share is estimated at 40% versus OpenAI's 27%. On capital efficiency specifically, Anthropic generates an estimated US$0.23 of annual recurring revenue for every dollar raised, ahead of Databricks at US$0.16 and materially ahead of OpenAI at US$0.11.

Databricks still posts the strongest overall business quality score, helped by positive free cash flow that neither AI lab has reached. The valuation risk in this comparison sits with OpenAI rather than Anthropic.

What this means for wholesale investors

This matters for investors holding or considering exposure through Special Purpose Vehicle structures, the standard mechanism through which a platform pools wholesale capital into a single entity that holds shares in a private company. The mechanics do not change because a portfolio company files for an IPO. What changes is the underlying diligence question.

To hold an SPV position in SpaceX, OpenAI or Anthropic, an investor needs to qualify as a wholesale or sophisticated investor under the Corporations Act 2001, generally by accountant certification of net assets above A$2.5 million or gross income above A$250,000 in each of the past two years. That qualification makes the SPV structure legally available. It also means the diligence is the investor's and the platform's responsibility rather than a regulator's, since wholesale offers are exempt from the prospectus disclosure rules that apply to retail products.

Our earlier analysis of crowd-sourced private market pricing tracked how signals from venues like Polymarket and Nasdaq Private Market were suggesting a gap between OpenAI's and Anthropic's private valuations well before either company's filing became public. PitchBook's scorecard lands on a similar conclusion through entirely different data. For anyone holding or building pre-IPO exposure through NonPublic or elsewhere, SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are three different businesses with three different risk profiles. Treating them as one undifferentiated "AI IPO" position would have missed the gap PitchBook's research found between them.

The risks being tested right now

Illiquidity, valuation opacity and concentration are the three structural risks inherent to private market investing, and this wave of mega-IPOs puts pressure on all three simultaneously. A confidential filing does not create liquidity. Lock-up periods, typically running 90 to 180 days from listing, meant even SpaceX's earliest pre-IPO holders could not sell into the 19% first-day gain. Valuation opacity, the gap PitchBook's scorecard exposed in OpenAI's pricing, does not resolve itself just because a company submits paperwork to a regulator.

Whoever benefited most from SpaceX's debut likely was not simply whoever got in earliest, but whoever sized a position against verifiable fundamentals: a dominant share of global launches, growing Starlink revenue, demonstrated execution. These were facts the market could assess well before the IPO.

Applying that same standard to OpenAI and Anthropic individually, rather than treating "AI IPO exposure" as one interchangeable category, is the difference between repeating SpaceX's outcome and repeating the dot-com era's most expensive listings.

What comes next

The clearest signal still to come is the public filing itself. OpenAI's registration statement will disclose real revenue retention figures and the exact terms of its Microsoft agreement when it becomes public, no later than 15 days before the roadshow starts. Anthropic's filing will do the same for its audited margins.

For investors holding pre-IPO positions in either company, that public filing date, not today's confidential submission, is the point at which the valuation thesis each company is selling gets its first real test. The fact that SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic moved to public markets within the same month does not make them comparable investments. The month revealed how different they actually are.

For wholesale and sophisticated investors interested in discussing current pre-IPO availability across the broader private markets landscape, book an introduction call with our team. Our 2025 Private Markets Landscape report provides additional context on how the asset class is evolving as mega-cap companies enter public markets, and our platform overview explains how NonPublic structures access for qualifying investors.

NonPublic Pty Ltd (ABN 49 607 216 928) holds Australian Financial Services Licence #482668. Investments are available to wholesale and sophisticated investors as defined under the Corporations Act 2001. This content is general in nature and does not constitute financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Investing in private markets involves significant risk, including the potential loss of your entire investment. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. You should obtain independent financial advice before making any investment decision.