What Retail Access to Private Markets Actually Looks Like (And What Wholesale Investors Get Instead)

In March 2026, Fundrise listed its Innovation Fund on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker VCX. The fund holds stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Databricks, and Anduril. It listed at $31.25 per share. Within days it was trading above $270. A 19-year-old student at San Diego State University told Bloomberg that the $2,000 he put in had turned into $76,000 in four days. "Dang. I'm, like, rich."

Shortly after, Robinhood listed Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a $1 billion closed-end fund on the NYSE offering retail traders exposure to Databricks, Stripe, Revolut, SpaceX, and Oura Health. CEO Vlad Tenev described his goal as "blowing open" the door to private markets. Fundrise's CEO started calling funds like these "PVCs" (publicly traded venture capital) and predicted they would become common within a few years.

Companies like SpaceX, valued at between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, and Anthropic, at an implied pre-IPO valuation of $1.4 trillion, have compounded for years while staying private. Investors who wait until IPO are often arriving after much of the value creation has already occurred. Both Tenev and Cathie Wood of ARK Invest have called the SEC's accredited investor rules antiquated. Their frustration is understandable.

Buying a fund with exposure to a company is not the same as owning the company. The entry price and secondary market mechanics can affect the outcome regardless of how the portfolio performs.

NAV Premiums and How They Work

When VCX surged from $31.25 to over $270 in its first week, nothing happened to the portfolio. Retail demand pushed the fund's share price far above its net asset value. Vervia Partners analyst Anthony Showalter put it plainly: "This is not an anti-AI short. It is not even an anti-Fundrise short. It is a wrapper-math short." His analysis found that even under the most bullish possible assumptions for Anthropic and SpaceX, with major holdings doubling again from already elevated levels, VCX would still need to fall roughly 50% to reach its reported NAV of $18.97 per share. Anthropic and SpaceX may be attractive companies, but that does not make every listed vehicle holding them attractive at any price.

Destiny Tech100, an earlier listed private tech fund, traded at a near 2,000% premium to NAV in the weeks after its 2024 launch. Robinhood's own fund traded at around a 47% premium from the start. John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, noted when Robinhood Ventures listed that investors "need to remember they're buying a vehicle that will trade on sentiment, liquidity and supply-demand dynamics, not just underlying net asset value."

For a retail investor buying VCX at a 500% premium, the companies in the portfolio need to appreciate by 500% just to break even on the entry price. The portfolio could perform and the investor could still lose money.

What These Funds Hold

Premiums are only part of the issue, because investors also need to know what the fund holds.

Not all of these funds hold direct equity in the portfolio companies. Some use derivative structures or secondary positions to get there, each adding a layer between the investor and the asset. The companies are not passive in this:

• OpenAI has previously pushed back on attempts to tokenise its shares for retail distribution.
• Stripe maintains a dedicated page warning about retail investor scams.
• Anduril executives have publicly warned about people selling Anduril shares they don't actually own.

These companies are selective about who ends up on their cap tables.

A wholesale investor taking a position through a properly documented SPV holds a direct legal interest in the vehicle that holds the shares, with the entry price negotiated at the time of the deal and no secondary market dynamics layered on top.

NonPublic's guide to pre-IPO investing in Australia covers the mechanics of how wholesale investors access late-stage private companies and what to examine before committing capital.

Fees and What Gets Taken Out

Publicly traded closed-end funds charge management fees on AUM regardless of performance, compounding over the holding period, and some carry additional fee layers where they hold positions in other funds. The premium at which shares trade on secondary markets reflects investor demand rather than portfolio value and only affects the price one investor pays another.

SPVs typically charge a management fee of 1 to 2% of committed capital annually, alongside carried interest of 10 to 20% of profits on exit. The economics are tied to a specific investment and disclosed upfront. The manager's return is linked to the investor's outcome on that deal.

Under the Corporations Act 2001, wholesale and sophisticated investors can access investment structures unavailable to retail investors, including unlisted SPVs and direct co-investment vehicles, without the consumer protections that apply to retail products. The assumption built into that classification is that investors who qualify have the financial literacy and capacity to assess the risks themselves. ASIC's guidance on the wholesale classification is the relevant reference for eligibility. NonPublic's piece on qualifying as a wholesale investor covers the four tests under the Act and the threshold changes ASIC has proposed.

The Liquidity Question

Listed private market funds offer daily liquidity, which is the main selling point for investors who do not want capital locked up for several years, but a listed fund's share price responds to retail sentiment rather than to what the portfolio companies are doing. An investor who bought at a significant NAV premium and needs to exit in a down market may find the fund's price has moved against them regardless of portfolio performance. Destiny Tech100 investors who bought near the 2,000% premium experienced this directly.

Partners Group capped withdrawals from its $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV fund this week after redemption requests reached 9.8% of NAV, nearly double its internal threshold. A day earlier, Cliffwater capped quarterly redemptions at 5% after investors sought to withdraw roughly 17% of shares from its $31 billion private credit fund. KKR, Blackstone, Ares, and Blue Owl all fell sharply in response. Liquidity looks different when too many investors want out at once.

Direct private market investments are illiquid by design. Capital is committed for a defined period, typically three to seven years, with distributions following a sale or IPO. There is no listed share price moving with retail sentiment in the interim.

BlackRock's 2026 Private Markets Outlook notes that public and private markets are evolving toward a more integrated relationship, with semi-liquid and evergreen structures expanding in both directions, but buying a listed fund at a NAV premium is still different from entering a direct position at deal price.

Why the Push Happened

As NonPublic's piece on the new rules of private market investing covers, more than 50% of value creation in high-growth companies now happens before they reach public markets. SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks compounded through most of their growth cycles while private. Investors in public markets largely missed that period.

Tenev and Wood have a point that the current accreditation rules exclude most investors from the part of the return curve where the gains have been largest. A listed fund trading at a large NAV premium is one response to that, but whether it gives investors the economic outcome they are expecting depends on mechanics that are easy to miss when the share price is moving fast.

Wholesale investors using SPV structures get in at deal price without a wrapper premium, but take on less liquidity and more concentrated positions in exchange.

A Note on Risks

SPV structures carry their own risks. A single-company position is concentrated by definition, so if that company does not reach a liquidity event within the expected timeframe, investors may hold an illiquid position with no exit pathway. Private company valuations are also less transparent than public equivalents and harder to verify independently.

The risks of private market investing are covered in detail on the NonPublic blog: illiquidity, valuation opacity, information asymmetry, structural complexity, and concentration risk. For investors specifically considering SpaceX exposure, NonPublic's piece on how to invest in SpaceX in Australia covers the five ways to get exposure and what each one delivers in practice.

The Fundrise and Robinhood listings have made private market investing a retail conversation, and the pre-IPO window for the companies at the centre of it is finite. Investors still need to understand the structure, the entry price, and the risks behind the exposure.

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.