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SpaceX's IPO Will Be a Major Boost for Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)

SpaceX's IPO Will Be a Major Boost for Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)

新浪财经新浪财经2026/02/11 09:30
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By:新浪财经

Perhaps those so-called "dumb money" investors aren't so dumb after all.

In the past two years, Silicon Valley has seen a surge of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) that promise individual investors the ability to own shares in hot startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. Due to high fees and sometimes questionable claims about actual equity holdings, these funds have often been seen as "money-losing channels" for individual investors. However, the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX may eventually prove that these investments were actually wise decisions.

If the capital markets ultimately value SpaceX at $1.25 trillion—a figure Elon Musk recently stated could be reached after merging with xAI—this would be 10 times its mid-2022 valuation of $125 billion. Over the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by only about 60%, far less than this level.

These SPVs, marketed to ordinary investors, tout the opportunity to "buy private shares before the company goes public," a risk far higher than investing in index funds. There are currently more than 1,000 unicorns worldwide, many born out of the 2021 funding boom that remain unlisted and may never go public, meaning related investments could be lost entirely. If a dentist in Iowa invests heavily in shares of these "billion-dollar startups," they could lose everything.

These funds also lack the public and transparent operational performance information that listed companies are required to provide. As my colleague Sri wrote in an in-depth report at the end of 2024, they sometimes charge high fees as well.

A fund called Sand Hill Road Technologies Fund (headquartered in Miami rather than Silicon Valley) once promoted to potential investors the opportunity to acquire SpaceX shares at $258 per share, nearly twice the expected institutional cost of $135 per share at that time. The premium bought investors a stake in a fund that itself invests in another layer of SPV. Even if SpaceX successfully goes public, SPV investors must still hand over 20% of their investment gains.

However, with the IPO valuation of SpaceX expected by Musk and many investors to be astonishingly high, even if ordinary investors enter when SpaceX is valued at over $100 billion rather than $1 billion, and even if they have to give up part of their returns, they could still achieve the kinds of high returns Silicon Valley insiders often boast about.

Max Wolf, co-founder of Systematic Ventures, which provides SPV investment advice to investors, commented:

"There is an entire industry promoting all of Musk's projects." But he also points out that, at least for now, this collective judgment seems to have paid off. In a low-growth environment, these companies "have become stable profit machines."

Wolf added that he has witnessed a shift in the industry's attitude toward SPVs over the years.

SPVs were once seen as a means for Silicon Valley insiders to cash out to outside investors, but now many institutions view SPVs as a way to raise large sums of money and compete with strategic investors and sovereign wealth funds. Venture capitalists "aren't big enough" to write billion-dollar checks on their own.

Well-known institutions such as Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Menlo Ventures have already set up SPVs to participate in massive fundraising rounds, sometimes reselling shares to limited partners.

Whether the capital markets will accept SpaceX's $1.25 trillion valuation remains to be seen.

But if investors buy into this valuation, it's foreseeable that SPV managers will use this case as a successful model for years to come.

Editor: Guo Mingyu

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Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.

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