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The SpaceX IPO is a culmination—not only of the rocket and AI company’s journey but of a decades-long shift in venture capital.
Consider: In 2002, the year Elon Musk founded SpaceX, venture capital was in the aftermath of the dotcom bust and far smaller as an industry than it is today. Though it’s hard to say exactly the size, contemporary reports say that U.S. VCs deployed $20.3 billion into private companies in 2002. Some numbers come in higher, others lower, but regardless: Those 2002 numbers for all of VC are quaint next to the tens of billions poured into one funding round in OpenAI or Anthropic today.
Venture’s scaled way up, and SpaceX going public means VC’s behemoths are set to win even more. Some great investor winners in the SpaceX IPO didn’t exist at the time SpaceX was first founded: For one, Founders Fund—started by PayPal mafiosos Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery in 2005—which first backed Musk’s rocket moonshot in 2008 to the tune of $20 million. Or Andreessen Horowitz, founded in 2009, which first backed SpaceX in 2023 when the company was still valued at $137 billion.
Other key winners: Sequoia, which first backed SpaceX in 2019 with partner Shaun Maguire leading, has invested more than $2 billion in the company across funds, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. There’s Valor Equity Partners—run by longtime Musk ally Antonio Gracias—whose stake in SpaceX could even (impossible as it may seem) go north of $90 billion. (Other Valor investments include Zipline and WEKA.)
Arguably the most interesting investor winner: DFJ Growth—founded in the 2000s after spinning off legendary-eventually-embattled firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson on the then-crazy idea there would be numerous unicorns staying private longer—invested in SpaceX from its first institutional fund in 2009. Initially, DFJ Growth backed SpaceX to the tune of $10 million, and since has invested more than $800 million in the company. Randy Glein, cofounder and managing partner at DFJ Growth, has been a SpaceX board observer since 2009.
I spoke to Glein last year as I covered the firm’s $1.2 billion fifth fund: “When we were telling our prospective investors for that first fund, ‘we’re going to find companies that will be worth $1 billion or more,’ they’d start counting on their fingers: ‘How many of those have there been in the last five years?’”
How much has changed, with SpaceX’s nearly $1.8 trillion valuation that popped on debut. So, SpaceX is a win for these investors, to be sure. But, given that returns will be concentrated among a limited number of VCs, is SpaceX a win for venture? It’s complicated: on one hand, absolutely, said Kyle Stanford, PitchBook director of U.S. venture capital research.
“It’s a huge win for VC firms,” he said. “It’s a concentrated win, but the sentiment is that everyone can say: ‘VC is still creating these returns.’ Now, you have something where you can say that IPOs are on their way back. Because if SpaceX does great, we have some momentum. And if OpenAI and Anthropic go out, maybe we have some companies starting to build a pipeline for an IPO in early 2027—regular unicorns, between $10 and $20 billion, that could be a big narrative.”
On the other hand, these returns are extremely concentrated, and the venture haves will have more, while the have-nots will have even less.
“If you look at SpaceX’s full cap table that we have, it’s not a bunch of emerging managers or mid-tier VCs,” said Stanford. “It’s the best, and then all the other major asset managers in the world.”
The SpaceX IPO is really the first time we have proof that the sometimes-multi-decade hold period for venture-backed companies (which has created massive tension between VCs and their limited partners waiting for cash) can produce spectacular results. The sector will grasp onto this for dear life, even if SpaceX is ultimately anomalous, as will be Anthropic and OpenAI. These three examples, if indeed the latter two are out by the end of the year, will be held up as what’s truly possible. Even if nothing like this is probably ever going to happen again.
“These three IPOs are the biggest example of the power law of venture,” said Stanford. “Everyone’s going to say, ‘well, look at SpaceX and Anthropic and OpenAI’ forever. And when you look at the 2026 exit value charts—$4 trillion in exit value—every other bar is going to be tiny.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
