Welcome to the Stableton Navigator | IPO market revival, Anthropic's impressive $2.75 billion fundraise
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Welcome to the Stableton Navigator, your essential digest on the world’s leading privately held tech companies, such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe, alongside key insights into the pre-IPO and venture capital secondary market.
We're thrilled to announce the launch of our Stableton Unicorn Top 20 Strategy, now welcoming its first investors, a pivotal step for those looking to navigate the complexities of tech investments with us.
In this issue, we delve into the current IPO landscape and spotlighting the potential for an opening IPO window. Highlights include Anthropic's impressive $2.75 billion fundraise from Amazon, Stripe's notable employee share-sale, and an exploration of Databricks' exceptional growth.
Welcome aboard the Stableton Navigator.
Market Update
Bankers closed Reddit’s IPO at the top of its range. The stock then rose another 60% of its IPO price on its debut. A day before, AI Infrastructure firm Astera Labs was listed above its range and popped 72% on its first trading day. (The Information)
Companies that went public last fall: Instacart trades 28% above its IPO level, while ARM holdings is up close to 3x. (Klaviyo is at 20% from its IPO price). (The Information)
According to Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, over 100 companies are ready to list after filing confidentially with the SEC. (Crunchbase)
"Sober" IPO market is over, says top Morgan Stanley banker. (The Information)
With valuations finally down, Growth funds are gaining traction. Accolade Partners closed a $1bn growth fund of fund. Morgan Stanley exceeded its target by over 40%, raising $1.2bn for its later-stage growth equity and credit fund. (Venture Capital Journal)
The multiple expansion of public growth companies is starting to lift the share prices of private firms on the secondary market. Later-stage growth companies closer to a potential IPO are the biggest winners. (Caplight: 2023 Pre-IPO Year End Review)
Portfolio News
Anthropic - Amazon invests $2.75bn in AI startup (Bloomberg)
Stripe valuation jumps to $65bn in employee share-sale deal (WSJ)
Databricks marches forward with $1.6bn revenue (TechCrunch)
Stripe reveals it passed $1 trillion in total payment volume in 2023 (CNBC)
SpaceX looks to scale astronaut launch capacity with second Florida pad (TechCrunch)
Canva acquires Affinity Design suite in push to rival Adobe (Bloomberg)
OpenAI courts Hollywood in meetings with film studios (Bloomberg)
Epic Games - why Disney’s $1.5bn stake is a smart play (Forbes)
Ripple acquires enterprise-grade regulated platform for digital assets (Business Wire)
Discord to offer rewards for gamers as CEO considers IPO (Bloomberg)
Databricks doubles down on AI efforts to take on rivals (Bloomberg)
Revolut partners with self-custody crypto wallet Metamask (Revolut)
Klarna - CEO on potential IPO in 2024: "It’s not impossible" (CNBC)
Your View
Stableton News
We launched our new fund, an institutional, open-ended systematic strategy targeting the world's most valuable privately held technology companies, in a strong collaboration with CMS, fundcraft, and Morningstar.
The Stableton Unicorn Top 20 strategy is now accessible to professional investors worldwide, broadening our reach well beyond Switzerland.
Moreover, in partnership with Clearstream, we've streamlined the process, allowing global clients to seamlessly subscribe to our fund's ISIN directly through their banks.
Reach out for more information if interested.
Chart of the Week
Investors are pouring into secondaries to capitalize on discount deals. Secondary Funds raised half as much as last year in just two months in 2024, on pace to smash records.
The Untold Unicorn Story
Stripe is a comprehensive payments infrastructure for online and in-person transactions, offering solutions for businesses of all sizes to handle payments, manage revenue operations, and launch new business models. It provides a unified platform to reduce costs, increase revenue, optimize checkout conversions, support recurring business models, and automate finance operations1. Additionally, Stripe offers advanced features like Stripe Treasury for banking-as-a-service API and Stripe Climate to contribute to carbon removal technologies24.
A fun fact about Stripe's growth is that the company was built in Buenos Aires by its founders, who spent only $10 a day developing the initial prototype. This cost-effective approach allowed them to focus on building the product quickly and efficiently, leading to their first customer within one week (More interesting facts about Stripe).
Q&A and Learning
“Does Stableton invest in actual shares in the companies?”
Yes, the strategy includes establishing direct and indirect exposure to the top 20 unicorns, which involves purchasing shares directly, primarily via the secondary market. If it is not possible to get a direct exposure, Stableton invests via an investment vehicle like and SPV, acting as a holding vehicle for the underlying shares in the company.
Where to Meet Us
Reach out if you would like to meet
0100 EMEA Conference - Amsterdam (April 16-18)
Geneva, Switzerland (April 17-18)
Emerging Manager Exchange - London (April 25)
London VC World Summit - London (May 3)
Doha, Qatar (May 13)
Abu Dhabi, UAE (May 14)
Dubai, UAE (May 15)
0100 CEE Conference - Prague (May 14-15)
Private Wealth Forum UK - London (May 16)
SuperRetun / SuperVenture - Berlin (June 4-7)
AltsHK - Hong Kong (June 13)
Fund Forum - Monaco (June 24-26)
Israel Private Markets Summit - Tel Aviv (July 16)
And, of course, we are always happy to meet you at our main offices in Zurich, Switzerland!
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