SpaceX has gone public at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, a figure that, when combined with pending listings for Anthropic and OpenAI, will likely push total value north of $4 trillion. A new report from NCVA-Pitchbook confirms that these three companies alone will generate more value than all U.S. venture capital-backed exits since the year 2000.
The numbers
The claim comes from the Wednesday release of the NCVA-Pitchbook Venture Monitor. The report notes that private market capital is heavily concentrated in artificial intelligence, but the specific metric regarding these three firms stands out. The authors state that alongside the SpaceX listing, the future public offerings for Anthropic and OpenAI will create more value than the entire history of U.S. VC-backed deals over the last two and a half decades.
That assertion holds up when the figures are added. The SpaceX valuation sits at $1.77 trillion. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are moving toward similar scales, meaning the trio together approaches $4 trillion. This dwarfs the $70 billion in IPO proceeds recorded by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for last year.
Caveats and context
Readers should note specific limitations in the data. The calculation excludes non-U.S. entities such as Alibaba. The metric measures value created rather than strictly liquid cash. Many major tech milestones, including the iPhone, the debut of Android, and the launches of YouTube and Instagram, occurred at companies that were already public. These events would not appear in IPO figures.
The last 25 years were eventful regardless. That period included listings for Google in 2004, Tesla in 2010, and Meta in 2012. These firms now rank among the most valuable companies globally. During the same time, LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp were acquired for more than $20 billion each. Uber’s $84 billion IPO in 2019 now represents less than 5 per cent of what SpaceX has raised.
Companies are remaining private for longer periods. A modern equivalent to Google might have delayed its listing to achieve a higher valuation. The capital-intensive nature of AI training has also forced labs into intense fundraising, inflating valuations. The scale of these public offerings exceeds anything the industry has previously executed, and it is already stressing financial infrastructure to its limit.
What it means
For the people building these systems, the implications are practical. The financial machinery required to support these valuations is under strain. Traditional listing processes and market structures may need to adapt to accommodate capital flows of this magnitude.
