Mid-Year Update

The private secondary market had its best first half in at least three years. Our NPM Private Market Tracker*, which shows the estimated average price performance of the 170 largest names in our internal Tape D® data, was +16% over the first half of the year. If we zoom in to just the top 50 most active names in our data, the performance was also +16%. In comparison, the S&P500/Nasdaq100 were +7%/+9%, meaning that, after dramatically underperforming in 2023/24, the private secondary market meaningfully outperformed the public markets in 1H25. (Source: Bloomberg)

In our view, reinvigorated performance in private markets has been driven by a few factors. First, in our view, private markets offer exposures to emerging secular growth industries, such as AI and robotics, that may not be easily replicated in public markets. Second, we believe the proliferation of products and platforms allowing access to private markets has resulted in a greater level of investor engagement. Third, the US IPO market has shown some signs of life, punctuated by strongly performing offerings from Coreweave and Circle, giving private investors renewed optimism about future exits. And fourth, with a concentration in information technology and highly dependent on domestic sales, we believe private markets have been more insulated from tariff policy volatility.

We would note that the institutional VC community has also supported positive sentiment on the market. For 1H25 total primary VC funding was +10% sequentially vs. 2H24. AI related investments were roughly 2/3 of the total (Source: Pitchbook)

The best performing subsectors should come as no surprise. Robotics, driven by FigureAI (+1149%!), was the best performer, at +93%. Defense technology, led by Anduril Industries (+106%), was second at +76%. The AI ecosystem, which represents the largest single recipient of VC funding in recent years, was +14%. Performance of other notable sectors was varied, with Health tech +11%, Cryptocurrency & Blockchain +5%, Fintech +2%, Cybersecurity -2%, and InsurTech -4%. (Source: NPM)

Notable single name performers, in addition to those mentioned above, include x.AI (+165%), PsiQuantum (+129%), OpenAI (+108%), Cityblock Health (+89%), Anthropic (+65%), Ramp (+59%) and Deel (+51%). Notable underperformers among the top 50 names include Redwood Materials (-13%), Chainalysis (-4%), Cohere (-1%), Snyk (+0%), and Discord (+1%). (Source: NPM)

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RECENT EVENTS

• Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, resigned after a two year tenure. (7/9; TechCrunch)
• AI data center company Coreweave is acquiring data center operator Core Scientific for $9bn in stock. (7/7; CNBC)
• Microsoft laid off 9,000 employees, about 4% of its workforce. (7/2; New York Times)
• Robinhood announced it would begin selling tokenized shares in private companies such as OpenAI and SpaceX. (7/2; Bloomberg)

NOTABLE CAPITAL RAISES

• SpaceX is in talks to raise additional capital at a $400bn valuation. (7/8; Bloomberg)
• French AI model company Mistral is in talks to raise more than $1bn in equity and debt capital. (7/8; Bloomberg)
• AI chip maker Groq is in talks to raise $300-$500mm at a $6bn valuation (7/9; The Information)
• Fintech Revolut is in talks to raise $1bn at a $65bn valuation in a round led by Greenoaks. (7/9; Financial Times)
• x.AI raised $5bn in equity and $5bn in debt to scale AI infrastructure. (7/1; CNBC)
• AI data company Surge AI is reportedly raising $1bn at a $15+bn valuation (7/1; Reuters)

NOTABLE EXITS

• Linqto, a trading platform for private secondary shares, filed for bankruptcy after SEC and DOJ investigations into its business were announced. (7/8; WSJ)
• Figma, backed by Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia, filed to go public. (7/1; TechCrunch)