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Forbes Daily Briefing

The Payday From These 3 Companies Would Outstrip A Decade Of VC Returns

Forbes Daily Briefing

Forbes

Business, Tech News, News

4.418 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When ride-hailing app Uber listed on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2019, it reset the scales for all venture capitalists. In one of the all-time largest initial public offerings in the United States, the company raised $8.1 billion on a $82 billion valuation.  Early backers like venture fund Benchmark, Google Ventures and Lowercase Capital held stakes worth over $12 billion at the time of the float. But the numbers for that deal — one of the best of the last era of startups — now look quaint.  That’s because the valuation of just three startups, SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, have exploded over the last year. Elon’s space giant is now tipped to go public at a valuation of over $1.5 trillion as soon as June following its merger with xAI in February, which valued the combined business at $1.25 trillion. OpenAI and Anthropic are now valued at $852 billion and $380 billion respectively, with Anthropic reportedly in talks to at least match its archrival’s valuation in a new fundraise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:43.4

Today on Forbes, the payday from these three companies would outstrip a decade of VC returns.

0:51.8

When ride-hailing app Uber listed on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2019,

0:57.7

it reset the scales for all venture capitalists. In one of the all-time largest initial

1:03.2

public offerings in the United States, the company raised $8.1 billion on an $82 billion valuation.

1:15.1

Early backers like Venture Fund Benchmark, Google Ventures,

1:21.8

and lowercase capital held stakes worth over $12 billion at the time of the float. But the numbers for that deal, one of the best of the last era of startups, now look quaint. That's because the valuation of just three

1:29.5

startups, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, have exploded over the last year. Elon's space

1:37.3

giant is now tipped to go public at a valuation of over $1.5 trillion as soon as June, following

1:44.1

its merger with XAI in February, which valued

1:47.3

the combined business at $1.25 trillion. OpenAI and Anthropic are now valued at $852 billion

1:56.6

and $380 billion, respectively, with Anthropic reportedly in talks to at least match its arch-rivals

2:03.3

valuation in a new fundraise.

2:06.9

Pitchbook data shows that $1.58 trillion was generated in total from all the stock market

...

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