Sep 14, 2026 · 33 min
Private markets face stale valuations and scarce exits
Talk Your Book: Why Aren't There More IPOs?
The episode examines why companies are staying private longer and how illiquidity, leverage, and AI-driven investing are reshaping access to growth assets.
- 1Private companies are extending runways as higher rates, leverage, and weak exit markets expose stale valuations.
- 2Secondary transactions are becoming a crucial liquidity valve as institutions struggle with locked-up private-market portfolios.
- 3AI, reindustrialization, electrification, and dedollarization guide a selective approach to private-growth investing.
Don't miss
Christian Munafo connects the IPO slowdown to stale private valuations and explains why secondary markets are becoming the practical route to liquidity.
The brief
Christian Munafo joins Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson to explain why IPO activity remains subdued as private companies, investors, and valuations adjust after the 2021 boom.
Private-equity and venture-backed companies are extending their runways rather than accepting down rounds, leaving leverage, limited profitability, and stale marks unresolved.
As institutions face years of illiquidity, secondary transactions offer a mechanism for repricing and liquidity, with discounts varying across venture, buyout, and real-asset deals.
VanEck’s selective strategy focuses on reindustrialization, electrification, dedollarization, and private growth rather than treating every fashionable theme as investable.
The AI discussion centers on OpenAI and Anthropic, contrasting closed and open models while considering whether a hybrid ecosystem will emerge around a few leading providers.
The closing tension is access: private assets may broaden beyond institutions, but long lockups and rapidly changing AI leadership demand patience and selective exposure.
What was said on this episode
42 statements · 12 positive · 15 negative · 6 mixed · 9 neutral
Private investments without recent pricing should receive valuation haircuts.
“if you have a private investment on your, on your books and you don't have good see-through that there hasn't been a round in a while with the pricing, you should probably give it a haircut.”
Listen at 2:05
Some companies now reach $100 million revenue within 12–18 months.
“companies that used to take maybe eight to 10 years to hit 100 million in revenue. They're hitting it in 12 to 18 months.”
Listen at 4:47
Some private-company valuations are excessive, while others are justified.
“in some cases, I think, frankly, the valuations have gotten ahead of themselves. And in other cases, it's actually warranted.”
Listen at 5:37
Some companies receive valuations before demonstrating scalable production.
“companies being awarded valuations without actually having demonstrated the ability that they can produce products at scale.”
Listen at 6:45
Many rapidly growing private companies have uncertain durability and longevity.
“a lot of these companies It's questionable what the durability and shelf life is of these businesses”
Listen at 8:36
Many companies from the zero-rate era will become obsolete and destroy capital.
“there's going to be a lot of capital destruction from that era, from companies that have been rendered obsolete and that frankly have not pivoted enough and don't have an ability to raise more capital to sustain themselves.”
Listen at 10:10
Approximately 1,000 unicorns exist in the venture-growth landscape.
“there's roughly like 1,000 reported of these unicorns in like the venture growth landscape”
Listen at 12:05
Six unicorns reported down rounds in the prior 12 months.
“Six companies.”
Listen at 12:38
Many private companies will extend runways until forced to reprice.
“these companies are going to make the runway last as long as they possibly can until they have to reprice themselves.”
Listen at 12:57
Most of these private companies are not yet profitable.
“the reality is most of these companies, shocker, are not yet profitable.”
Listen at 13:12
Most of these private companies are not yet profitable.
“most of these companies, shocker, are not yet profitable.”
Listen at 13:13
About half of unicorns have potentially stale valuations totaling low trillions.
“about half of those companies, you're talking about probably low trillions in market cap of arguably stale market cap value.”
Listen at 13:50
Some private companies will produce exceptional successes.
“there's going to be some incredible wins. Right. There's going to be some incredible success stories.”
Listen at 14:37
Capital and value are increasingly concentrated among fewer managers and assets.
“there's more concentration of value and more capital flowing to fewer managers. and to fewer assets.”
Listen at 14:53
Many institutional investors are constrained by illiquid private assets.
“a lot of these institutional investors are tapped out.”
Listen at 16:02
Secondary-market annual deal volume will reach at least $250 billion this year.
“annual deal volume this year will probably be a quarter trillion, at least.”
Listen at 17:33
Normal secondary discounts are 10–30% for venture and lower for buyouts and real assets.
“in a normal environment, you'll see, I don't know, 10% to 30% discounts in venture, maybe single digits to 15% in buyout, and probably similar with real assets.”
Listen at 18:18
Private-market secondary discounts at least double during market disruptions.
“those discount ranges at least double.”
Listen at 18:42
Secondary markets will provide major liquidity for unrealized private-market NAV.
“secondaries is going to be a major release valve for all of this unlocked, unrealized NAV that's creating problems.”
Listen at 19:11
Interval and tender-offer funds can provide investors partial liquidity during redemption periods.
“investors in those will have an option to take partial liquidity out, right, during the redemption periods.”
Listen at 20:32
Traditional private-equity drawdown funds generally have ten-year lives.
“if you're coming in through those wrappers, if you're a qualified purchaser and you're going in through like a traditional private equity style drawdown fund, then yeah, those are like 10-year lives.”
Listen at 20:42
Venture funds often have 15–20-year lives.
“especially if you're in venture, it's more like 15 to 20 years.”
Listen at 20:53
Venture private-equity fund lives are typically 15–20 years.
“if you're in venture, it's more like 15 to 20 years.”
Listen at 20:53
VanEck’s key private-growth risk is entering investments too late.
“our real risk is Back to the comment you made earlier, Michael, about Airbnb is are we coming in too late”
Listen at 22:41
VanEck focuses on perceived winners across major private-market themes.
“we're focusing on what we think are their perceived winners and building out diversification across the major thematics in those perceived winners.”
Listen at 23:18
Premier frontier AI models will retain use cases for enterprise superusers and agents.
“you're going to continue to have a use case, especially for enterprise level super users and nonstop agentic running solutions for the premier frontier models.”
Listen at 24:10
Frontier models’ enterprise advantage depends on maintaining performance gaps over open models.
“so long as they maintain their performance gap compared to the more generic, more cost effective open models.”
Listen at 24:22
Frontier-model demand depends on maintaining performance advantages over open models.
“if they don't maintain those performance gaps, there's a different question.”
Listen at 24:32
Large frontier AI models will continue to have important use cases.
“you're going to continue to have a use case for the large frontier models.”
Listen at 24:37
Large frontier models will capture more AI revenue from super users.
“you're going to see more of the revenue probably going to the large frontier models because the super users are going to be paying for it.”
Listen at 24:55
AI markets will use hybrid ecosystems rather than one dominant model.
“But we think you're going to live in this hybrid solution. We don't think it's like one model takes all.”
Listen at 25:14
AI markets will use hybrid ecosystems rather than one dominant model.
“we think you're going to live in this hybrid solution. We don't think it's like one model takes all.”
Listen at 25:14
AI markets will use hybrid ecosystems rather than one dominant model.
“you're going to live in this hybrid solution. We don't think it's like one model takes all.”
Listen at 25:15
High-stakes and intensive AI use cases will favor best-in-class models.
“if you're trying to cure cancer or you're running a massive kind of capital markets type prompts or exercises or nonstop running agents, the reality is you're probably going to want the best in class models”
Listen at 27:00
Waiting for company maturity can reduce private-investment outcome risk.
“by waiting until the companies are more mature, it gives us an ability to further risk adjust the entry point and have less of a binary outcome.”
Listen at 29:32
AI intelligence units require substantial power and infrastructure.
“we need power to fuel these things. And we need massive infrastructure to fuel these things.”
Listen at 31:04
AI intelligence units require massive infrastructure.
“we need massive infrastructure to fuel these things.”
Listen at 31:08
Many companies will remain private longer while creating value before IPOs.
“there are a host of companies that are going to continue the staying private for longer trend, driving value for clients before they enter the public market.”
Listen at 31:17
Capital released from private investments will be redeployed elsewhere.
“as that capital unlocks, it's going to look for a home.”
Listen at 31:37
Capital will increasingly flow toward fewer perceived winning managers and companies.
“there's more being allocated to fewer managers and fewer companies that are the perceived winners.”
Listen at 31:45
Private companies will face broad repricing as capital unlocks.
“you're going to have, again, a big reckoning across the broader space as companies have to get repriced.”
Listen at 31:51
Broader private markets will undergo a repricing reckoning.
“as companies have to get repriced.”
Listen at 31:55
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
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