Pre-IPO Funds for Financial Advisors

Revolut $75b valuation after 72% yoy revenue growth, 35 million customers | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/O0IXnGczVeg Revolut, a fintech company primarily operating online bank accounts in Europe with a presence in the United States, has notched a $75 billion valuation. The company 35% year-over-year growth and 35 million active customers. It generated $4 billion in revenue in 2024, a 72% increase from the previous year, with forecasts of $5.9 billion in 2025 and $9.3 billion in 2026. This is a 12.7x revenue multiple based on 2025F revenue. To maintain liquidity while staying private, the company has implemented structured tender offers, allowing employees and early investors to sell shares, a strategy increasingly adopted by large private firms to provide liquidity to employees and early investors without pursuing an IPO. This approach is seen as beneficial for employee retention and investor confidence, though it may pose challenges in maintaining control and ensuring long-term revenue growth amidst competition and potential talent drain. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

AI App investment cases; Sierra AI Agents and OpenEvidence | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/O0IXnGczVeg Two AI companies, Sierra and OpenEvidence, highlight contrasting approaches in the AI application space. Sierra has a $10 billion valuation and offers AI customer service agents on top of existing models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. The company leverages a consultative implementation approach with major brands. OpenEvidence, valued at $6 billion, develops its own large language models tailored for medical use, capturing 40% of U.S. doctors as users. Sierra’s model relies on enterprise sales and client-specific solutions, potentially creating a moat through deep integration with client workflows. OpenEvidence’s strength lies in its proprietary models trained on focused medical data, offering a defensible moat through specialization and operational efficiency in healthcare settings. Proprietary data and tailored models provide a stronger competitive edge over building on third-party platforms, as the latter risks disruption by larger players. AI Apps are seen as having significant potential, particularly in specialized fields. Could AI Apps be the next big investment opportunity in the pre-IPO market? @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

n8n Raises at $2.3b Pre-Money | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/eH8V-I6DMmA n8n, an AI agent workflow application, facilitate the seamless connection of software solutions to automate tasks. The company experienced significant growth from a $350 million valuation four months ago to a $2.3 billion valuation in a new round led by Accel. n8n has 50,000 customers including Siemens and generated over $40 million in recurring revenue as of Q2 2025. The appeal lies in their ability to assist non-coders in creating tailored workflows. However, general-purpose agents may lack the effectiveness of specialized ones trained for specific tasks like marketing or sales, which benefit from pre-existing knowledge and adapt to personal context over time. AI agent workflows have the potential to reduce 7 hour weekly research task by half or a third using solutions like n8n, for example. This type of AI agent solution opens the potential for AI to enable single-person companies to reach $1 billion valuations by automating business functions. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Cohere Raises at $6.8b Valuation | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/eH8V-I6DMmA Cohere … a smaller Canadian large language model business competing with OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI … raised $500 million at a $6.8 billion post-money valuation. The company has a distinct B2B-focused approach. The secondary market valuation stands at $4.4 billion, a discount from the prior $5.5 billion round, offering a potentially attractive entry point if the market adjusts upward to the new round price. Cohere is down 5% in the secondary market over the last year while competitors OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity saw returns of 170%, 344%, and 253% respectively. The company projects revenue growth from $70 million to $200 million by year-end, leveraging a secure, closed ecosystem tailored for B2B. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

OpenAI Tender Eyes $500b Valuation | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/eH8V-I6DMmA A recent tender announcement valued OpenAI at $500 billion, a 66% increase from its $300 billion valuation earlier this year. The tender will be $6 billion and is rumored to be led by Thrive Capital (…Softbank, Dragoneer to participate as well). OpenAI projects an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $20 billion by December 2025, implying a 25x forward revenue multiple, up from a $150 billion valuation a year and a half to two years ago. Current ARR is $10 billion so the $20 billion Dec 2025 target would be a +100% in 6 months time. A tender offer allows existing shareholder exits or partial sales. OpenAI has forecasted 2029 revenue at $127 billion, 6x their $20 billion Dec 2025 forecast and 12x current ARR (note 2029 is only 4 years from now). This would easily put the company at a $1 trillion valuation or more. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Anthropic $150b valuation (now $170b!!!) | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/HBcFFCP16SU ** Just hit the wire that Anthropic is now at a $170b valuation (Jul 29 at 5:00pm) ** Anthropic's potential $150 billion valuation, a significant jump from $61.5 billion in March, reflects a 143% increase driven by a 4x revenue growth since January, positioning it at a 37x revenue multiple; while some view this as unsustainable due to high valuations across AI and public markets, others see Anthropic's strong product, particularly Claude, excelling in developer tools and verticals like financial services with partnerships (e.g., Databricks, S&P Global), as capable of sustaining growth in a competitive AI landscape. Concerns persist about the lack of clear, sustainable moats beyond product quality, with infrastructure, data access, and user stickiness highlighted as critical factors, alongside risks of disruption and the need for continued innovation to justify such valuations. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

xAI + Valor for GPUs | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/HBcFFCP16SU Valor's strategic $12 billion investment in 350,000 GPUs (estimated), leased to xAI, fuels xAI’s ambitious push to scale to 1 million GPUs for training cutting-edge AI models. This surpasses the 100,000-150,000 GPUs used in its current top-tier Grok 4 model. The move showcases a smart financial structure that minimizes xAI's risk while leveraging Valor's strong partnership to secure vital compute resources. The deal not only positions xAI to outpace competitors by potentially limiting their GPU access but also embraces innovative energy solutions like natural gas generators and battery storage to meet the gigawatt-scale power demands, promising transformative productivity gains, economic growth, and exciting opportunities for AI-driven innovation in education and beyond. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Figma IPO valuation set at $15-$16b | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/HBcFFCP16SU Figma's upcoming IPO, targeting a $15-16 billion valuation, reflects a 15x revenue multiple with an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue, down from the $20 billion Adobe offered in a failed 2022 acquisition due to European regulatory hurdles. Despite this, optimism surrounds Figma’s strong business model, with 46-50% year-over-year revenue growth, a sticky product widely adopted by premier tech companies and designers, and potential for AI integration to enhance its collaborative design platform … positioning it well for a successful public market debut amidst a favorable IPO environment. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Electricity as a Commodity: Does anyone have a guy? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/ExtDtusly2g Investing in electricity as a commodity, similar to oil or natural gas, remains challenging due to the lack of accessible futures or commodities markets. Purchasing utility or nuclear company stocks are seen as indirect and insufficient (in Dillon’s opinion), while regional energy markets allow for swapping access and production credits, but true commodity exposure is elusive. Project finance for power production offers long-term purchasing agreements with consistent dividends over 20 years, yet it ties investors to specific producers and requires evaluating management and maintenance. Does anyone have a solution here? An electricity commodity fund? @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Mega Funding Rounds: Revolut, SpaceX, Groq, Mistral, Harmonic, xAI(?) | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/ExtDtusly2g Recent large funding rounds highlight momentum in tech and AI, with Revolut raising at a $65 billion valuation up from $45 billion despite secondary trading lower (possibly due to European investor caution), SpaceX potentially at $400 billion+ from $350 billion in a routine annual cadence, Groq (semiconductor firm) at $6 billion from $2.8 billion, Mistral at $6.2 billion from $2 billion, Harmonic AI at $875 million, and xAI rumored at $200 billion (though denied by Musk). This activity is seen as a cycle where deals spur more deals amid successes like IPOs, acquisitions, and aquihires, with AI's potential underestimated, prompting investors to deploy trillions in dry powder despite risks of frothiness. Each round has unique drivers rather than herd behavior, and for xAI, building a million-GPU data center (from current 300,000, after Grok trained on 100,000) could enable superintelligence but requires ~$40 billion capex, likely raising valuation to $300 billion+ to minimize dilution, possibly via debt (like Anthropic), equity, or hybrid given less revenue than OpenAI; private credit markets are expansive, but power infrastructure constraints in Nashville/Memphis may delay, though Musk may solve via solar fields. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

JPMorgan's Data Fees: Innovation Killer in Fintech? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/ExtDtusly2g JPMorgan is considering charging significant fees to fintech companies like Plaid, MX, and Finicity for accessing customer data from Chase bank accounts, such as verifying account ownership or transactions to enable banking and payment services, with potential fees exceeding fintech revenues by up to 1000%. JPM views Plaid/MX/Finicity as thwarting innovation in fintech and payments by commoditizing banks, making large institutions like JPMorgan appear equivalent to smaller ones and prompting them to defend their brand and services, while raising debates on whether transaction data belongs to customers—who should freely use it—or the bank. Such fees could degrade customer experiences by increasing costs passed to users, extending account profitability timelines from months to a year, encouraging reversion to outdated verification methods like micro-deposits or voided checks, and reducing private fintech valuations amid regulatory uncertainties, including recent CFPB rule pullbacks. Customers might switch banks to maintain seamless integrations with tools like QuickBooks if connectivity becomes expensive or restricted, potentially leading other banks like PNC, Capital One, and Bank of America to follow suit. However, this could accelerate adoption of blockchain and stablecoins for instant, fee-free verifications and wallet-based transactions, bypassing traditional systems like ACH, Swift, wires, Visa, and Mastercard, ultimately disadvantaging legacy finance players in favor of technological advancements. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Aquihires in AI: A better form of M&A? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/ExtDtusly2g Aquihires, where large tech companies acquire talent and license technology from startups without fully buying the entity to circumvent merger regulations, have become prominent in AI, as seen in deals like Google's $2.7 billion acquisition of Character AI's team and tech, Meta's $14.8 billion purchase of 49% of Scale AI with dividends to shareholders and key personnel like CEO Alexandr Wang moving to lead Meta's AI efforts, and Google's $2.4 billion licensing of Windsurf's technology alongside hiring its CEO after a potential OpenAI deal was complicated by Microsoft due to GitHub overlaps. These structures arise from increased M&A oversight, creating uncertainties, risks, and legal complexities that harm investors, employees, and markets which favor clear paths and stability, potentially leaving early investors or non-transferred staff disadvantaged. While outcomes like Scale AI's may preserve some business value and provide solid returns (e.g., 3-4x for early investors), lower valuations in cases like Windsurf and Character AI feel premature compared to potential long-term growth, and the practice is riskier in emerging tech than traditional sectors, setting precedents that could worsen if outright acquisitions were allowed; ultimately, fair compensation makes the exit form irrelevant as long as employees and stakeholders are equitably rewarded. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Robinhood’s pre-IPO stock tokenization legal and good for investors? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/iKmLb1bIo9g Robinhood, the online brokerage, announced a limited offering of tokenized access to pre-IPO equities OpenAI and SpaceX for European investors, using SPVs (special purpose vehicles) as the underlying ownership structure. Though the investment amounts were small ($1M for OpenAI, $500K for SpaceX), the move highlights growing interest in democratizing private market access through tokenization. There are questions on transparency, regulatory clarity, and the accuracy of marketing - especially after OpenAI publicly distanced itself from the offering. Tokenization can increase financial market efficiency, lower fees, and broaden access to high-growth private tech companies which are all great for investors. However … investor protections, clear disclosures, and due diligence are critical, especially given the opaque nature of private market SPV structures. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Figma’s IPO a buy? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/iKmLb1bIo9g Figma, the SaaS web/app design solutions company, has announced plans to go public, reporting $750 million in 2024 revenue, up 48% year-over-year, and profitability in recent quarters. Although the company hasn't disclosed its IPO valuation, it was previously set to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion before UK/EU regulators blocked the deal. With strong customer retention, 1,000+ enterprise clients paying over $100K, and 91% gross margins, Figma is widely used across startups and large tech companies, indicating a durable, high-performing SaaS business. While AI poses potential risks to its model, Figma is already integrating AI features and may remain resilient against simpler design platforms like Canva. Market expectations are optimistic, especially if IPO pricing is solid and if Figma’s strong cult following drives retail investor interest. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Groq is the private market Nvidia? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/iKmLb1bIo9g Groq, a semiconductor company focused on AI infrastructure, recently opened its first EU data center in Finland to power its GroqCloud platform, positioning itself as a pure-play AI cloud alternative to diversified giants like AWS and Google Cloud. The company has a $4.8B valuation - up 73% since its August 2024 round - and offers a rare, focused exposure to AI infrastructure investments. Infrastructure, specifically chips and energy systems, has a more attractive risk/adjusted return profile compared to AI Apps, which carry higher uncertainty and less predictable profitability. The sector is expected to shape capital flows for the next 10–20 years, with particular attention on scaling energy-efficient chip manufacturing and electricity generation projects. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Prediction markets a business with staying power? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/cRvZWyV3az8 Kalshi and Polymarket are emerging as leading platforms in the prediction market space, allowing users to bet on outcomes of political events, sports, and more. Kalshi has reached a $2 billion valuation, while Polymarket is valued at $1 billion, though it remains unavailable in the U.S. due to regulatory constraints. These platforms function more like exchanges than traditional sportsbooks, using structures like futures markets for trades. While the concept of prediction markets offers potentially more reliable sentiment data than polls—especially for political forecasting—concerns persist around manipulation, lack of regulation, and ethical risks. There’s debate over whether such markets resemble investing or gambling, with political betting raising particularly complex questions about transparency and influence. Hedging strategies tied to election outcomes could be interesting to consider. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Wealthfront a buy post-IPO? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/cRvZWyV3az8 Wealthfront, a digital wealth management platform, confidentially filed for an IPO after growing assets under management (AUM) from $20 billion in 2021 to $80 billion, driven largely by its 401(k) expansion and high-yield cash offerings. The company generates revenue through advisory fees (~25 bps), higher-margin cash products, and tax loss harvesting tools, positioning itself as a passive, modern alternative to legacy firms. Despite being dwarfed by top wirehouses, its growth rate and product suite make it competitive, especially for startups and younger investors. Concerns exist about sustainability—over half of AUM may be in cash, potentially vulnerable to falling interest rates. Comparisons to Robinhood surfaced, with speculation that Wealthfront could expand into adjacent sectors like mortgages, aiming to diversify and unlock new revenue streams. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Harvey disrupting the law firm industry, or driving it to new revenue levels? | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/cRvZWyV3az8 Harvey is a legal-tech AI that sits on large language models, sells to law firms and in-house counsel, and just raised $250 million at a $5 billion valuation. Annual recurring revenue hit $75 million in April 2025 and is rising at triple-digit pace. Primary valuations jumped from $93 million (Series A, Q2 2023) to $3 billion (Q1 2025) and now $5 billion, while secondary pricing still trails. Goldman Sachs projects AI will automate 40–45 % of all legal work. Users already draft contracts in about an hour, drop costs from roughly $8 000 to nominal tool fees, and cut turnaround from weeks to days. Routine tasks shift to templates, billable hours shrink, and lawyers focus on strategy and risk. AI-first law firms now offer services at a fraction of traditional rates, expanding access to quality legal advice. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

OpenAI proposes Microsoft own 33% equity in for-profit transition | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/-RXP35EW1vY OpenAI is under pressure to finalize its transition to a for-profit structure by year-end, with $20 billion in convertible note funding at stake. A key hurdle is renegotiating Microsoft’s stake, currently estimated at 40-45%, down to 33% while potentially reducing or eliminating its profit-sharing and altering IP rights. Microsoft, having invested billions before ChatGPT’s rise and providing critical infrastructure via Azure, holds significant leverage. OpenAI’s nonprofit still controls over 50% ownership, complicating a clean cap table and raising regulatory concerns if Microsoft’s stake climbs too high. The current structure, involving multiple entities and capped-profit arrangements, lacks transparency, making it difficult for investors to model Microsoft’s true economic exposure. The situation is further strained by regulatory scrutiny and strategic competition, with OpenAI’s dependency on Microsoft highlighting risks of over-reliance on a single counterparty. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon

Cluely records everything you see, say, and hear | Full 🎥 = youtu.be/-RXP35EW1vY Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led a $15M early-stage investment in Cluely founded by Roy Lee, known for controversially using AI to pass big tech interviews and getting kicked out of Columbia University. The company's product installs locally on a user’s device, recording everything seen, heard, and said, creating a persistent data stream used to enhance productivity and generate context-aware content or suggestions. The business is reportedly already profitable with 30-40% margins and strong unit economics. Broader implications of this type of technology include workplace surveillance, corporate ownership of employee-generated data, the emergence of “digital AI agent twins,” and ethical concerns about data rights and royalties. As companies adopt always-on recording AI agents, legal and economic frameworks may evolve to protect individuals' digital likeness and compensate them for their data’s use … suggesting a future where employment contracts include clauses around data ownership and royalties for AI-trained models based on an employee’s output. @clint_sorenson @TheFuscoKid @evvcohen @AaronGDillon