Glen Anderson has been brokering trades in private company shares since 2010, back when the number of institutional investors focused on the late-stage private market could be counted on two hands. Today, he says, there are thousands. As president of the investment bank Rainmaker Securities, whose focus includes private securities markets — it facilitates transactions in roughly 1,000 stocks — Anderson has a front-row seat to one of the most nail-biting moments in the history of the secondary market. And right now, he suggests, the narrative has three main characters: Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX.
But the storyline is more complicated than the headlines suggest.
Perhaps tellingly, at least for now, banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have begun offering OpenAI shares to their high-net-worth clients without charging carry fees, according to Bloomberg. Goldman, meanwhile, is charging its customary carry — often 15% to 20% of profits — for clients seeking Anthropic exposure. What none of this accounts for is SpaceX, which stands apart amid shifting sentiment around these other powerful brands. Anderson describes it as one of the only names in Rainmaker’s universe that never experienced the punishing correction that hit much of the private market between 2022 and 2024, a period when many private companies’ shares fell 60% to 70% from their peaks (after their valuations were run up just as fast). The rocket and satellite behemoth has “been pretty much consistently up and to the right,” Anderson said. Anderson, who, naturally, has an economic interest in flattering the company and its earlier backers, credits SpaceX’s management with disciplined pricing and not squeezing every last dollar out of each funding round or tender offer. “A lot of companies will fall for the temptation to maximize the price of their stock in every round,” he said. “The problem is that that doesn’t leave any room for error.” SpaceX, by contrast, played it conservatively by “not getting too greedy,” and the payoff for earlier investors has been enormous. “You can imagine if someone got in in 2015 what kind of gain they’re sitting on right now,” said Anderson. To put a finer point on that comment: SpaceX was valued at roughly $12 billion in 2015, when Google and Fidelity jointly invested $1 billion in the company. Someone who got in at that price is now sitting on a gain of more than 100x, with the company valued at more than $1 trillion ahead of its planned IPO. That IPO is now imminent, seemingly. SpaceX filed confidentially this week for an initial public offering, setting the stage for what could be one of the largest market debuts in history, with Elon Musk reportedly aiming to raise between $50 billion and $75 billion, possibly in June. Only Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut, which valued the energy giant at $1.7 trillion, has come close. Unsurprisingly, the rumored filing has already changed the dynamics of the secondary market for SpaceX shares, according to Anderson. “Today, I saw a flood of SpaceX investors coming to me saying, ‘Can you give me SpaceX?'” he noted. “It’s been a very active buy side.” But supply is drying up. The closer a company gets to an IPO, the less incentive existing shareholders have to sell because they can see the liquidity event on the horizon. That’s where things get a little dicier for OpenAI and Anthropic. Both companies are reportedly exploring public offerings of their own and have signaled they could move this year. But SpaceX, by filing first, is about to test the market’s appetite in a major way, and Anderson suggested that whoever follows will be at a disadvantage.
“SpaceX is going to soak up a lot of liquidity,” he said flatly. “There’s only so much money out there allocated to IPOs.” The first mover gets to the trough first; those who follow face both more scrutiny and, potentially, less capital.
It’s a dynamic that plays out in every so-called vertical and from which the AI companies aren’t completely immune, despite the attention being showered on them right now. Time your IPO too early and you’re the one testing market receptivity. Wait for someone else to go first, and you may find the biggest checks have already been written.
You can hear more of our interview with Anderson in the upcoming episode of the StrictlyVC Download podcast, which drops every Tuesday. In the meantime, check out recent episodes, including those with Whoop CEO Will Ahmed and investor Bill Gurley.
