SpaceX Opens IPO Door, Disney Commits $1B to OpenAI, Stripe Expands Crypto Stack

Here’s what stood out this week across our portfolio holdings: an IPO signal from one of private tech’s largest names, a landmark AI–media partnership reshapes generative video, and a payments platform accelerates its move into crypto wallets and rails. Let’s dive in…

THIS WEEK’S BREAKING NEWS

SpaceX opens door to IPO after years of staying private

SpaceX’s CFO has confirmed the company is preparing for a potential IPO as early as next year, though timing remains uncertain. Internal communications indicate a public listing could fund accelerated Starship deployment, lunar and Mars missions, and orbital AI data centers. The move would mark a shift after years of relying on secondary tender offers, with the latest valuing SpaceX at roughly $800B. (1)

MARKET UPDATE

Private equity dry powder eases as exits stay elusive

Global private equity dry powder declined to $2.184T as of March 31, down 5.2% from its December 2023 peak, while venture capital dry powder fell 19% to $600.9B, reflecting three consecutive years of weak fundraising. Slower exits since 2022 remain the main constraint, delaying capital recycling, even as private market AUM surpassed $17.5T and investors continue shifting toward private credit, infrastructure, and evergreen structures. (2)

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PORTFOLIO NEWS

Anduril and GKN anchor sovereign autonomous systems push

Anduril UK has partnered with GKN Aerospace to support the British Army’s Project NYX, appointing GKN as airframe manufacturing and electrical integration partner while Anduril retains system integration leadership. The collaboration spans the Isle of Wight facility and includes Archer Aviation’s eVTOL and hybrid propulsion expertise. Project NYX now involves over 100 UK suppliers, supporting roughly 50,000 jobs across the domestic defense industrial base. (3)

Anthropic and Accenture bet on enterprise AI returns

Anthropic and Accenture have formed a three-year partnership to help enterprises generate measurable returns from AI adoption, positioning Accenture as one of Anthropic’s three largest enterprise customers. Accenture will train 30,000 employees on Claude and deploy forward-deployed engineers to regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare. The deal reflects rising enterprise scrutiny on AI ROI amid intensifying competition with OpenAI. (4)

Anthropic emerges as Broadcom’s $21B mystery AI customer

Broadcom disclosed that Anthropic is the previously unnamed customer behind a $10B custom chip order, tied to Google’s AI accelerators manufactured by Broadcom. CEO Hock Tan also revealed an additional $11B Anthropic order placed in the latest quarter. The disclosure highlights Anthropic’s large-scale compute commitments and signals growing demand for non-Nvidia, application-specific AI chips. (5)

Cursor doubles down on next phase development; IPO not priority

Anysphere is prioritizing product expansion over an IPO after reaching $1B in annualized revenue and raising $2.3B at a $29.3B valuation. The company is investing in proprietary, product-specific models, usage-based pricing, and enterprise controls. Strategic focus is shifting toward agentic workflows, cost governance, and serving teams rather than individual developers. (6)

Canva reshapes its platform around imperfect design for 2026

Canva’s 2026 Design Trends Report, based on platform search data, creator surveys, and advisory input, signals a shift toward “Imperfect by Design.” Searches for DIY elements rose 90%, lo-fi aesthetics 527%, and liminal visuals 220%, while 80% of creators aim to regain creative control by pairing AI with human-led, editorial and pared-back design styles across brand and enterprise content. (7)

Deel enters global sport with Arsenal partnership

Deel has signed a multi-year partnership with Arsenal as its Official HR Platform Partner, marking the company’s first major entry into global sports sponsorship. Beyond brand visibility, Arsenal will adopt Deel internally to manage HR operations. The deal follows Deel’s $300M Series E and $300M secondary, a $17.3B valuation, and growing scale, processing $22B in annual payroll across 37,000+ organizations. (8)

Figure AI signals readiness for industry deployment with humanoids

Figure AI is positioning itself as an industrial automation company rather than a robotics showcase, using long-form demonstrations and live pilots to prove operational reliability. Its hour-long package-sorting demo and an 11-month BMW plant pilot, where robots handled over 90,000 parts for 30,000 vehicles, signal a shift from concept validation to early deployment economics. (9)

Kraken steps deeper into bitcoin-backed corporate lending

Kraken has extended a $210M USDT-denominated, one-year secured loan to KindlyMD, using bitcoin collateral valued at a minimum of $323.4M and held under a shared control agreement. The 8.0% facility replaces KindlyMD’s prior Antalpha financing, underscoring Kraken’s expanding role as a structured credit provider and balance-sheet partner for crypto-native treasury strategies. (10)

Kraken clears major legal hurdle in $13B BSV case

The UK Supreme Court has rejected a $13B appeal by Bitcoin SV investors against several exchanges, including Kraken, over BSV’s 2019 delisting. The court ruled the case raised no arguable point of law, reinforcing earlier findings that investors failed to mitigate losses and dismissing claims of hypothetical growth parity with Bitcoin. The decision removes a major litigation overhang for exchanges. (11)

Neuralink hires former FDA regulator to lead medical affairs

Neuralink has appointed former FDA executive David McMullen to lead its medical affairs division, bringing in the regulator who previously oversaw the review of its brain-computer interface devices. The move follows Neuralink’s clearance to begin human trials in 2024 after an initial FDA rejection in 2022. The hire underscores Neuralink’s focus on regulatory execution as it expands clinical deployment amid ongoing scrutiny. (12)

Disney becomes OpenAI’s first major Sora partner

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI have signed a three-year licensing and commercial partnership, making Disney the first major content partner on Sora. The agreement allows Sora and ChatGPT Images to generate fan-inspired content using over 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters. Disney will also become a major OpenAI customer and invest $1B in equity, reinforcing OpenAI’s enterprise and platform strategy. (13)

OpenAI reframes ChatGPT as core business infrastructure with GPT-5.2

OpenAI has released GPT-5.2, positioning the model as infrastructure for daily professional workflows rather than a general assistant. The launch follows an internal directive to concentrate fully on ChatGPT and emphasizes workplace automation, long-context handling, and structured task execution. OpenAI claims GPT-5.2 meets or exceeds human performance across 44 occupations, reinforcing its enterprise-first strategy amid growing scrutiny. (14)

BBVA - OpenAI alliance to reshape banking core operations

BBVA and OpenAI have formed a deep strategic alliance to embed AI across the bank’s customer experience and operating model. Following nearly two years of collaboration, BBVA gains preferential access to OpenAI’s advanced models and talent, will deploy ChatGPT Enterprise to over 120,000 employees, and co-develop AI assistants for customers, relationship managers, and internal productivity, signaling a bank-wide shift toward AI-native operations. (15)

Perplexity integrates Benzinga to power AI-driven market research

Benzinga and Perplexity have formed a strategic partnership to embed Benzinga’s real-time financial news and datasets directly into Perplexity’s AI answer engine. The integration gives users conversational access to market-moving information, including earnings, analyst ratings, insider transactions, and price action. The deal positions Perplexity as a distribution layer for institutional-grade financial intelligence while extending Benzinga’s data reach across AI-native research workflows. (16)

Revolut deepens crypto stack with self-custody integration

Revolut and Trust Wallet have launched an EU integration enabling instant crypto purchases that settle directly into self-custodial wallets, bypassing centralized exchanges. Users can buy assets via RevolutPay, cards, or bank transfers, in some cases with zero fees. The partnership supports major tokens at launch and follows Revolut securing a MiCA license, reinforcing its regulated push into crypto-native infrastructure. (17)

Revolut expands beyond banking with UK mobile launch

Revolut is launching Revolut Mobile in the UK, entering the telecom market to deepen customer engagement within its app ecosystem. The service targets the company’s 12 million UK users and will initially be priced at £12.50 per month, rising to £14.99. The move positions Revolut against established operators such as EE, Virgin Media O2 and VodafoneThree, signaling continued expansion beyond core financial services. (18)

Revolut prepares private capital push as wealth offering expands

Revolut is assembling a dedicated private markets team as it looks to expand its wealth offering beyond listed securities. The fintech is recruiting junior bankers, asset managers, and private capital advisers to develop private fund investments and build relationships across the private capital ecosystem. The move follows Revolut’s broader push into investing services for its nearly 70 million users amid growing interest and scrutiny in private markets. (19)

Ripple, Circle and BitGo secure conditional approval for US banking charters

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has granted conditional approval for national trust bank charters to Ripple, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. While the licenses would not permit deposit-taking or lending, they would allow custody of client assets under federal oversight. The move marks a significant step toward integrating crypto-native firms into regulated financial infrastructure amid a more supportive U.S. policy environment. (20)

Stripe expands crypto infrastructure through Valora and Klarna

Stripe has expanded its crypto footprint through two moves: acquiring crypto wallet startup Valora and partnering via its Privy unit with Klarna to develop a crypto wallet. The acquisition strengthens Stripe’s wallet and stablecoin capabilities, while the Klarna collaboration targets broader consumer adoption of crypto products. Together, the steps signal Stripe’s intent to embed crypto infrastructure deeper into mainstream payments and financial services. (21)

Stripe prepares merchants for AI-driven purchasing

Stripe has launched its Agentic Commerce Suite, a new infrastructure layer designed to help brands and eCommerce platforms sell directly through AI agents. Building on the Agentic Commerce Protocol co-developed with OpenAI, the suite enables product discoverability, agent-compatible checkout, and agentic payments. (22)

xAI partners with El Salvador on nationwide AI education

xAI has partnered with the government of El Salvador to deploy its Grok chatbot across more than 5,000 public schools, reaching over one million students over two years. The nationwide program aims to deliver AI-powered, personalized education and support teachers through adaptive curricula. The initiative positions El Salvador as a large-scale testbed for AI in public education. (23)

OTHER NEWS

Mistral targets enterprise developers with context-aware Devstral 2

Mistral has launched Devstral 2, a coding-focused model designed to follow business and project context more closely, targeting enterprise developers competing against Anthropic and other specialists. The 123B-parameter model emphasizes persistent context awareness and is paired with Mistral Vibe, a CLI automation tool. Backed by ASML, Mistral is positioning itself as Europe’s enterprise-grade alternative in AI development tooling. (24)

Apptronik’s Apollo gains real-world capabilities with DeepMind

Google DeepMind has demonstrated Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid robot performing household tasks such as sorting laundry and handling groceries using natural-language commands. The demo builds on DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics models and follows Google’s investment in Apptronik’s $403M funding round. While still slow, the results highlight progress toward general-purpose robots that can generalize, plan multi-step tasks, and operate outside structured factory settings. (25)

Cerebras and partners launch next-generation Arabic LLM

Cerebras Systems, Inception, and MBZUAI have released Jais 2, a 70B-parameter open-weight Arabic-first LLM trained on the largest Arabic-focused dataset to date. The model delivers stronger reasoning, fluency across Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects, and robust English performance. Jais 2 emphasizes cultural alignment, safety-first design, and efficient training, positioning it as core AI infrastructure for Arabic-language markets. (26)

ByteDance and Alibaba eye Nvidia H200 after export shift

ByteDance and Alibaba are exploring large purchases of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips after the Trump administration signaled exports to China would be permitted, according to Reuters sources. The H200 is nearly six times more powerful than the H20 and unmatched by domestic alternatives for training. Supply remains constrained, and Chinese authorities may still review and approve use cases before imports proceed. (27)

ByteDance pulls ahead in China’s AI talent race

ByteDance led China’s tech hiring in 2025, topping rivals Meituan and Alibaba, as AI-related job postings surged 543%, according to Maimai. ByteDance recorded the highest hiring index and the most AI-specific roles, reflecting aggressive talent investment. AI jobs commanded average monthly salaries of 61,764 yuan, while demand shifted toward experienced professionals, signaling a maturing, production-focused AI labor market. (28)

CHART OF THE WEEK

Secondaries have posted the strongest median returns across private markets at 14.8%, outpacing private equity, infrastructure, private debt, and real estate. What makes this especially significant is the consistency: return dispersion is among the lowest of any asset class, and most secondary funds reach positive net cash flow by year 8, roughly two years faster than most peers. Investors thus gain higher performance, lower variability, and quicker capital return.

These features are integral to how the Stableton Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 strategy delivers exposure to private blue-chip tech companies with the efficiency and resilience that have elevated secondaries into a premium allocation.

THE UNTOLD UNICORN STORY

SpaceX: Making humanity multiplanetary

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX. Source: Investopedia (29)

SpaceX has revolutionized space travel since its founding by Elon Musk in 2002. Focused on cutting space transportation costs and enabling Mars colonization, the company has pioneered innovations with its Falcon and Starship rocket families. By developing reusable rockets, SpaceX has significantly lowered launch expenses and made space more accessible, increasing the frequency of missions.

Fun Fact: In December 2010, SpaceX's Dragon capsule embarked on its maiden test flight with a secret and quirky payload—a wheel of cheese. This humorous choice was a nod to a famous Monty Python sketch and was kept under wraps until the capsule successfully returned to Earth. The cheese traveled the entire mission inside Dragon, from its launch in Florida to its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. (30)

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SOURCES

1 - Space News, 2 - S&P Global, 3 - The Defense Post, 4 - Wall Street Journal, 5 - CNBC, 6 - Tech Crunch, 7 - Business Wire, 8 - Deel, 9 - Tech Times, 10 - The Block, 11 - Decrypt, 12 - Reuters, 13 - OpenAI, 14 - Fintech Weekly, 15 - BBVA, 16 - PR Newswire, 17 - Coindesk, 18 - Bloomberg, 19 - Bloomberg, 20 - The Block, 21 - Payments Dive, 22 - PYMNTS, 23 - Guardian, 24 - Techzine, 25 - Forbes, 26 - PR Newswire, 27 - Reuters, 28 - SCMP, 29 - Investopedia, 30 - Space