Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are larger than the last 25 years of technology exits

We’ve talked about before Hot summer IPObut with SpaceX just launching on the public markets and Anthropic and (possibly) OpenAI soon to launch, it can be easy to miss the sheer scale of what’s happening.

We got a good reminder of it in the NCVA-Pitchbook on Wednesday Project monitoring report. It’s no surprise that all the money in private markets is pouring into AI, but one particular figure stands out. Benchmarking the IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic, the report drops this piece: “Together with the SpaceX IPO, these exits will generate more value than all U.S. venture capital-backed exits since 2000.”

That’s quite a claim, and when you add up the numbers, it’s hard to disagree with it. SpaceX has already gone public at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, and with Anthropic and OpenAI both reaching trillions, the trio together could potentially reach as much as $4 trillion. By comparison, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Only $70 billion In the proceeds of an IPO in the United States last year.

Careful readers will notice some caveats in the language. It does not include non-US companies such as Alibaba, and we measure “value created” rather than strictly liquid cash. Many of the major tech developments have occurred at companies that have already gone public (such as the iPhone, the debut of Android, and the launch of YouTube and Instagram), so they are not included in the IPO numbers.

However… those were 25 eventful years. Among others, this period saw the initial public offerings of Google (2004), Tesla (2010), and Meta (2012), which are now among the most valuable companies in the world. During the same period, LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp were acquired for more than $20 billion. Uber’s $84 billion IPO seemed like a lot of money in 2019, but it’s less than 5% of what SpaceX just floated.

One factor here is that companies stay private longer. Today’s Google probably would have delayed its IPO and gone public at a higher number. Another factor is the capital-intensive nature of AI training, which has led labs to have extensive fundraising and inflated valuations. But the sheer volume of IPOs still far exceeds anything the industry has ever done, and is already pushing the financial infrastructure to its limits.