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PitchBook News - IPOs act as valuation truth serum

Plus: VCs shoot for the moon with space tech, the index race heats up, exploring the future of neurotechnology & more
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The Weekend Pitch
September 3, 2023
Presented by Masterworks
(Megan Woodard/PitchBook News)
After about a year-and-a-half without liquidity prospects, investors and employees of some of the largest unicorns may see a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

Last week's IPO filings of Instacart and marketing automation company Klaviyo mean that once they debut, various types of investment activity—from new late-stage rounds and secondaries trading to other public offerings—are likely to see a pickup. That is in large part because there will finally be more clarity about what private companies are worth.

Since the tech downturn started in early 2022, buyers and sellers of private companies have been at loggerheads, each unwilling to accept the other's price. Venture investors have been pointing to valuations of previously VC-backed public companies, but they also want to see how newer IPOs price.

"When IPOs happen, that will show primary and secondary markets where values should be," said Hans Swildens, the founder and CEO of Industry Ventures, one of the oldest and most prominent secondary VC firms that also backs new VC rounds and funds. “If a company went public 10 years ago, and it's trading today, it’s not the same thing as if a company goes public next quarter. An IPO is a price discovery mechanism.”

This is the Weekend Pitch, and I'm Marina Temkin. You can reach me at marina.temkin@pitchbook.com or @MTemkin.
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A message from Masterworks  
This painting sold for $8 million, and 2,478 everyday investors profited
All thanks to Masterworks, the award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art. To date, every single one of Masterworks’ 16 sales has returned a profit to investors. With three recent sales, Masterworks investors realized net annualized returns of 17.6%, 21.5%, and 35%.

How does it work? It’s simple: Masterworks does all of the heavy lifting, like finding the painting, buying it, storing it, and eventually selling it. It files each offering with the SEC so that nearly anyone can invest in highly coveted artworks for just a fraction of the price of the entire piece.

Shares of every offering are limited, but PitchBook readers can skip the waitlist with this exclusive link.

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Trivia
In Q2 2023, there was significant VC investment in clean energy. How much was invested in the space?

A) $8.9 billion
B) $2.7 billion
C) $5.4 billion
D) $6.3 billion

Find your answer at the bottom of The Weekend Pitch!
 

VCs look to the stars

(Caspar Benson/Getty Images)
Commercial space travel may still seem a distant fantasy, but VCs are betting on space tech startups to make it a reality. PitchBook's latest report on space tech lays out the key players and areas for potential growth and competition within the vertical.
 

The index race heats up

None of the mega-sized PE firms are included in the S&P 500 Index yet, but it's only a matter of time. Blackstone claims to be the largest excluded company by market capitalization, and Apollo says it meets all the key criteria, too.

Our latest US Public PE and GP Deal Roundup brings together insights on aspects of the business for seven key public alternative asset managers.
 

Brain, meet computer

(NurPhoto/Getty Images)
While neurotechnology companies like Neuralink and Saluda Medical have scored big checks from investors, Big Tech may need to take the reins as VCs get more cautious about investing in capital-intensive technologies.

From spine implants that can help people with paraplegia regain movement to brain-computer interfaces in VR headsets, read more about the promise and limitations of neurotechnology.
 

Quote/Unquote
"This is the biggest single takedown of a single network we have ever conducted. When you put it together with all the activity we took down across the internet, we concluded it is the largest covert campaign that we know of today."

—Ben Nimmo, head of security at Meta, on the company's removal of a Chinese influence campaign on the site
 

Recommended Reads
The US government came to rely on Elon Musk—and is now struggling to rein him in. [The New Yorker]

Here's how a tiny Mexican border city built a budget dental empire. [Bloomberg]

When AWS stumbled in AI, it gave Microsoft an opening. [The Information]
 

Stay tuned
Keep an eye out for these insights and research reports coming out this week:
  • Takeaways from August E-Commerce Deal Activity
  • August 2023 Global Markets Snapshot
  • Q2 2023 Emerging Tech Indicator Report
  • 2023 UK Private Capital Breakdown
  • H1 2023 Greater China Venture Report
  • Analyst Note: Analyzing Generative AI Applications in E-Commerce
 

Trivia
Answer: C)

In Q2 2023, VCs invested $5.4 billion in clean technologies. You can read more about those investments and the space as a whole in PitchBook's Q2 2023 Clean Energy Report.

This edition of The Weekend Pitch was written by Marina Temkin, Jacob Robbins, Emily Burleson and Sam Steele. It was edited by James Thorne and Laural Hobbes.

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