As Wall Street prepares for a historic wave of unicorn listings, the traditional boundaries between public and private markets are blurring.
Institutional investors are no longer operating in the dark when it comes to pre-IPO evaluations thanks to real-time secondary market signals.
Now our next guest surfaces this data on a regular basis.
David Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of OpenVC.
Private market indices including the NYC Open DC 500 and the NYSE Open venture capital unicorn index.
David, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
There are a lot of expectations when it comes to the unicorn IPOs of 2026.
So first and foremost, tell us about your two indices and what the makeup is we offer to. that give institutional and retail investors alike real insights into where these pre-IPO assets that have grown so large in private markets actually sit before they eventually IPO.
Our headline index, the New York Stock Exchange, Venture Capital Unicorn Index, tracks the 50 largest pre-IPO assets here in the US.
These are names like SpaceX, Opening I Anthropic, all rumored to be IPOing soon.
But then we actually recently launched a crossover index, the NYSE Open 500, and that's designed to give investors a real snapshot of the totality of US equity markets with the acknowledgement that as these private companies have become so large, it's important for investors to understand the market blindness that they might have if they are ignoring private markets ahead of an eventual mega IPO.
Yes, and when we take a look at the public markets here at the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100 continue to soar and hit new record highs, and we know that when it comes to chip makers, we continue to see a rally here.
So what are the public and private markets telling you right now?
It will be really interesting to see how private markets compare to the existing public, particularly AI companies you mentioned, the chips.
Manufacturers, the rumors of an open AI and anthropic IPO have propelled indices like ours which track private markets to pretty accelerated highs.
And for example, that crossover index, which is about 15% private companies, including large language model providers that might compete with those chipset manufacturers, actually outpaced the S&P last year by almost 13%.
Yeah, that's a very significant data just given how far and how fast the S&P 500 has come.
2026.
That's correct.
So when you're looking at the data, what is it telling you ahead of some very big IPOs that are coming down the pike?
There's some really interesting insights that we can glean from the secondary market and the pricing that our indices provide.
For example, with companies like SpaceX, we've seen that institutional investors are pricing it north of where that previous merger evaluation sat, but still a little bit south of where that rumored IPO evaluation range of 1.7.
5 trillion to 2 actually sits.
What that could signal is investors are being really forthcoming with how they are approaching the valuation of the asset, understanding that there should still be some modicum of a discount applied pre-IPO, but that they're really excited for the asset to grow into that valuation.
If we saw SpaceX trading at a materially lower price in the secondary market, it might signal that investors were not excited about the pricing range rumor, but we're not seeing.
So it's fair to say that there's a ton of enthusiasm for that name.
Yes, and of course SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, those are some names that we're paying close attention to.
But given what you're seeing in your indices as well as what you've read so far, what is your understanding in terms of expectations for these mega IPOs in 2026?
Yes, it's going to be really interesting to watch.
I know it's hard to put a thumb on it, but I can say that the fireworks should be there.
We're going to be monitoring a few things very closely.
First is how close the pricing in our indices actually comes to the eventual IPO price, and we would expect to see the prices converge somewhat ahead of that IPO.
Second will be what new already public equity indices rules mean for trading volatility.
So the new fast track rules with the NASDAQ.
100 for example, mean that assets like a SpaceX, like an OpenAI, like an Anthropic might be put into that index pretty quickly after IPO.
That could lead to mandatory purchasing from a lot of the very large ETFs.
It's actually something that our crossover index was designed to kind of smooth over from a volatility perspective because we track those assets ahead of the IPO and then through the.
Yes, and David, with opportunity also comes risk here, and there are plenty of new things that are happening when it comes to these mega IPOs that are expected in 2026.
So how is the present moment different from previous years, especially when it comes to public listings?
I would say the key difference from Now to previous years is the robustness of pre-IPO trading in the secondary.
You know, in a previous era, maybe Facebook is going public now obviously the idea that you would have billions of dollars in transaction volume pricing these assets in a really robust way ahead of an IPO was pretty foreign to markets.
Now with the introduction of our indices and Robust institutional trading platforms for some of these assets we can glean real market signal on whether investors are OK with the IPO price ultimately growing into that IPO price or might be a bit skeptical of it.
So there's just a ton of data now that we have available that really didn't exist when those markets were still pretty.
And finally, David, before I let you go, 2026 is indeed different when it comes to the pre-IPO and the IPO market for a host of different reasons.
But you know, if we have more data, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's good, especially when it comes to the retail investors.
So for these IPOs, what are the implications for the retail investors?
Americans that are watching right now, I think it's really important for retail to understand what they're actually purchasing in these IPOs and retail that's fortunate enough to have access to these names pre-IPO to have a very, very concrete understanding of what the entry price is.
There's been a lot of speculation in terms of access in these names, and I think that.
Because of the significant volume we're seeing in them, it's going to be important for folks to utilize tools available like our new indices and we have the research reports, etc. to really pinpoint what they're buying, when they're buying it, and if it's appropriate to purchase it either ahead of that IPO or immediately thereafter.
Yes, there are so many moving parts here and then when we think about things such as prediction markets as well.
It does cloud the picture.
So finally, before I let you go, when it comes to the IPO market, where do you think we'll be by the end of 2026?
Hopefully more open.
I think geopolitical situations notwithstanding, there's certainly the ability for some of these mega IPOs to open the window a bit more.
We're very excited about that, particularly because we think it's going to be an important moment for private markets as investors transition back into the public sphere with this new data.
Um, but time will tell.
Well, great having you on the show, David.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights as well as your perspective.
Thank you.
Thank you.
