Cathie Wood Says the Biggest IPO Opportunity Happens Before Companies Go Public

Cathie Wood says the biggest IPO opportunity now arrives before a company ever lists, with most investors missing the steepest growth while firms stay private.

The ARK founder framed SpaceX’s record filing as the start of a wider late-stage pipeline. Her firm holds six private companies it expects to list, each already at public-market scale.

Why the Growth Phase Now Happens in Private

ARK says the median US company waits 12 years to go public, up from five years in 1999.

Independent figures from University of Florida professor Jay Ritter confirm the same long climb. He has tracked IPO age for four decades.

Two structural shifts moved value creation earlier. The 2012 JOBS Act raised the shareholder cap that forces public registration from 500 holders to 2,000. Deep private funding then let firms delay a listing for years.

Cathie Wood pointed to three firms that reached scale while private. ARK’s report says:

• OpenAI crossed $25 billion in annualized revenue by early 2026, reached in about three years.
• Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO on June 1 at a $965 billion valuation.
• Databricks is preparing its own listing.

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SpaceX filed for what could be the largest IPO in history, but ARK believes it is not the only one… The median age of a US company at IPO has reached 12 years, up from 5 in 1999. The window where the most value is created is increasingly happening before a company lists, Cathie Wood wrote in a post.

The Pre-IPO Opportunity ARK is Tracking

SpaceX filed for a $75 billion offering, which would rank as the largest IPO on record. That target is nearly triple Saudi Aramco’s $25.6 billion sale in 2019, the current record.

The company plans to debut on Nasdaq on June 12 at $135 per share, implying a valuation near $1.77 trillion. Aramco listed at roughly the same $1.7 trillion mark six years earlier.

ARK treats that debut as one entry in a longer queue. In a published guide, the firm said its Venture Fund holds six companies with active IPO timelines. Access starts at $500 through SoFi or Titan.

Readers weighing the math can review the broader SpaceX IPO valuation debate and the practical routes for investing before listing.

What ARK Expects to Come Next

Cathie Wood argues that venture exposure gives investors earlier access to disruptive innovation than public markets allow.

The thesis draws on ARK’s broader annual innovation research, which maps growth across AI, robotics, and digital assets.

That framing also touches crypto. ARK’s Big Ideas 2026 report pairs its pre-IPO case with a bullish Bitcoin forecast.