Nasdaq Backs Payward (Kraken) at $21B Valuation, Anthropic Reportedly Nears Second Profitable Quarter, OpenAI Delays IPO

Big moves on capital and IPOs this week. Nasdaq invested $100M in Kraken parent Payward at $21B, Anthropic reportedly nears a second profitable quarter, and Altman ruled out an OpenAI IPO in 2026. Let's dive in…

THIS WEEK’S BREAKING NEWS

Nasdaq invests $100M in Kraken parent Payward at $21B valuation

Nasdaq's venture arm invested $100M in Kraken parent Payward, valuing the company at $21B, to jointly develop infrastructure for tokenized equities trading targeting a Q2 2027 launch. Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market-surveillance technology across its crypto and tokenized equity venues, deepening an existing Nasdaq Equity Tokens partnership as Kraken pushes beyond crypto into stocks and derivatives. (1)

STABLETON NEWS

Our Q2 2026 report is here

Q2 2026 was one of the biggest quarters we have seen in years.

We saw public market activity picking up significantly, with SpaceX completing the largest IPO in history and Cerebras going public in the same quarter. (2,3) Behind them, both OpenAI and Anthropic have now filed confidentially for their own listings. (4,5) Beyond the IPOs, we also saw a shift in deployment, from Figure AI’s robots entering commercial logistics to the Pentagon expanding classified AI contracts to eight top tech firms. (6,7)

Our latest Private Blue-Chip Tech Navigator breaks down what these new developments mean and where the market is moving next. Inside, we cover the quarter's largest funding rounds, secondary pricing trends, the upcoming IPO calendar, and more.

Download the full report here below.

PORTFOLIO NEWS

Boeing, Anduril advance in Army interceptor competition

Boeing and Anduril advanced to the next phase of the Army's IFPC Increment 2 Second Interceptor competition, pairing Boeing's seeker technology with a solid rocket motor built at Anduril's 450-acre Mississippi facility. Anduril backed the plant with over $100M of its own capital and $58M in Defense Production Act funding, aiming to break a supply chain historically constrained to two SRM suppliers as the team moves into detailed design and demonstration. (8)

Anthropic reportedly set for second straight profitable quarter

Anthropic reportedly told its backers it will be profitable for a second consecutive quarter, aiming to ease investor concerns about frontier AI companies' cash burn ahead of its planned IPO. Sustained profitability would mark a major milestone for the five-year-old company, coming as its leadership joins other AI executives calling for a more cautious pace of development amid safety concerns. (9)

Anthropic launches Claude tool for financial advisers

Anthropic launched Claude for Financial Advisors, connecting Claude to investment analytics and wealth-management software to help firms prepare for client meetings and review portfolios. The launch follows OpenAI's own financial-services ChatGPT version days earlier, extending Anthropic's push into investment research, portfolio analysis, and financial modeling tools. (10)

Anthropic's IPO stays on track despite safety concerns

Anthropic remains on track for a 2026 IPO despite AI safety concerns intensifying in recent days, with sources telling Axios the company may view heightened scrutiny as strengthening its case for going public rather than delaying it. Anthropic has reportedly chosen Nasdaq for its listing, while OpenAI continues leaning toward a 2027 debut, as both labs face questions over model pacing and compute spending. (11)

ARK swaps Palantir for Cerebras, trims AMD stake

ARK Invest sold roughly $6.5M of Palantir stock and bought an equal amount of Cerebras shares, while trimming nearly $9.9M of AMD, part of a broader rotation toward Robinhood, Archer Aviation, Beam Therapeutics, and CRISPR Therapeutics. Cerebras, down 35.8% year to date since its May IPO, posted 103% Q2 revenue growth to $209.9M and holds 600MW of contracted data center capacity, with analysts' average price target implying roughly 35-48% upside. (12)

Databricks' new retrieval model to boost AI accuracy

Databricks launched Adaptive Instructed-Retriever, a data retrieval model that adds sequential, multi-step search on top of its existing Instructed Retriever to handle complex agentic AI queries without added latency. In Databricks' own tests, the model's recall matched those from Anthropic, DeepSeek, and OpenAI while executing searches significantly faster, with the model syncing to Unity Catalog governance and gaining serverless GPU compute in coming months. (13)

Epic Games adds age checks for Australian R18+ titles

Epic Games Store will require Australian players to verify they're 18 or older before purchasing R18+ rated titles starting September 9, complying with the country's online safety code. Verification runs through Epic's Kids Web Services system, offering selfie (Yoti), credit card (Stripe), or government ID (Veriff) options, with bank verification via ConnectID following later in September, joining similar rollouts by Xbox, Microsoft, and Valve. (14)

Kraken debuts kHYPE with onchain reserve verification

Kraken launched kHYPE, a wrapped ERC-20 version of Hyperliquid's HYPE token backed one-to-one through its Wyoming-chartered Kraken Financial custody entity, available only on its Ink layer-2 network at launch. The exchange published smart contract and custody addresses for onchain verification, though deposits aren't FDIC-insured and redemption remains subject to availability, part of a broader product push that also added 20x ETH/USD spot-margin leverage and TWAP orders on Kraken Pro. (15)

Altman rules out OpenAI IPO in 2026

OpenAI won't go public in 2026, CEO Sam Altman told Fortune, citing AI safety concerns after Anthropic's Dario Amodei urged the industry to slow model capability development. Altman said the companies may be nearing an agreement to pace development together, though Anthropic's own IPO plans remain unaffected, with marketing expected to begin mid-October and the listing set to complete before U.S. midterm elections in November. (16)

OpenAI offers free access for federal, state, local governments

OpenAI and the GSA expanded their multi-year agreement to offer $0 license access and 50% off usage to federal, state, local, and tribal governments, extending eligibility to roughly 23 million public-sector workers. The 27-month deal, running through December 2028, includes discounted Daybreak Blue cyber-defender access for every verified government entity, building on OpenAI's earlier $1B Daybreak for Frontline Defenders commitment. (17)

SoftBank's OpenAI loan grows to $11.9B amid IPO delay

SoftBank secured an upsized $11.87B two-year loan from roughly 20 banks to fund its OpenAI investment, up from a $10B target, as SoftBank shares fell as much as 13% following news that OpenAI's IPO won't proceed this year. The loan adds to SoftBank's debt-fueled OpenAI push, including an earlier $10B margin loan and a planned $10-20B bond sale, as the company works toward investing close to $65B in OpenAI by October. (18)

OpenAI launches ChatGPT for financial services industry

OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Financial Services, developed with Morgan Stanley and Evercore as design partners for investment bankers and equity researchers. The product supports research, financial modeling, and client materials like pitchbooks, with integrations available for FactSet, S&P Global, Preqin, and Datasite, ahead of a planned expansion beyond investment banking. (19)

Revolut discloses breach from spoofed agency emails

Revolut confirmed a data breach after an unauthorized third party used a spoofed government agency email domain to fraudulently obtain a limited number of customers' identity documents, contact details, and potentially verification selfies and transaction histories. The company blocked the email, alerted law enforcement and regulators, and said funds and systems remain unaffected, following its recent conditional U.S. banking license approval and reports of a potential IPO valuing it up to $200B. (20)

Ripple expands AI in $1B treasury acquisition

Ripple expanded its GSmart AI tools within Ripple Treasury, letting agents monitor liquidity, forecasting, and reconciliation while requiring human approval before any action executes. The release adds a Knowledge Studio policy layer and Ask GSmart assistant, with 60% of eligible customers already using Risk Insights and 44% using Forecast Insights, as the platform now manages both traditional and digital assets like XRP and RLUSD. (21)

Vy Capital's SpaceX bet grows to $40B stake

Vy Capital, a low-profile venture firm with a four-person investment team, has built a $40B, roughly 3.4% stake in SpaceX, its fifth-largest shareholder, after first investing in 2016 at a $15B valuation. The firm's assets under management grew from $27B to $50B by June, and its founders wrote they expect SpaceX to exceed a $10T valuation within five to seven years, while also holding stakes in The Boring Company, Cerebras, and Neuralink. (22)

UK deepens SpaceX reliance with $40M spending

Britain has spent nearly $40M on SpaceX satellite services, split between roughly £13M ($17.6M) on Starshield and £16.5M on Starlink, making it the first country outside the U.S. to publicly confirm adopting Starshield for military communications. The UK operates about 1,000 Starshield and 500 Starlink terminals, as SpaceX's U.S. government Starshield contracts have exceeded $6B, primarily through two Space Force LEO constellation programs. (23)

Stripe expands Bank of Ireland ties with AI deal

Bank of Ireland partnered with Stripe to integrate the fintech's AI technology into BoI's core operating systems as part of the bank's digital transformation program, extending an existing relationship with BoI's Davy and New Ireland Assurance subsidiaries. The deal follows BoI's March launch of Zippay mobile-to-mobile payments and its Benefits Finder AI tax tool. (24)

xAI settles Apple suit, OpenAI claims remain

xAI and X Corp., both owned by Musk's SpaceX, resolved their antitrust claims against Apple over allegedly favoring OpenAI's ChatGPT on iPhones, asking a federal judge to dismiss that portion of the case. Claims against OpenAI remain unsettled, part of an ongoing feud that includes Musk's failed lawsuit over OpenAI's nonprofit-to-for-profit shift and Apple's own July trade secret suit against OpenAI. (25)

OTHER NEWS

ICBC, HSBC join ByteDance's $30B loan syndicate

ByteDance's $29.6B loan attracted 28 lenders including ICBC, HSBC, Bank of China, and China Construction Bank, with 15 Chinese banks contributing $18.9B (64%) of the upsized facility, ICBC alone committing $3B. The three-year loan, extendable to five, carries a 68 basis point margin over SOFR, far tighter than SoftBank's 250 basis point March bridge loan, as ByteDance builds out its AI ambitions. (26)

CesiumAstro lands largest-ever EXIM manufacturing loan

EXIM signed a $300M credit agreement with CesiumAstro, including a $20M J.P. Morgan revolving credit line, the largest EXIM award under its "Make More in America" Initiative and CesiumAstro's second loan under the program. The financing builds on the company's $500M Texas expansion, its $470M Series C round, and 2026 acquisitions of Vidrovr, Jariet Technologies, and 1Aardvark, as CesiumAstro's Texas facility targets 500+ new jobs. (27)

Lovable's CTO backs Zero's €8.93M seed round

Helsinki-based Zero raised an €8.93M ($10.3M) seed round led by Primary Venture Partners, with Lovable co-founder and CTO Fabian Hedin joining as an angel investor alongside founders from Supercell, Langdock, and Silo AI. Zero builds an autonomous GTM operating system meant to replace the CRM entirely, with agents handling prospecting, outreach, and customer health, following a €2.34M pre-seed round in December 2024. (28)

Mistral hits $24.4B valuation in record European round

Mistral AI raised €3B ($3.48B) led by Samsung, in what CFO Johan Bergqvist called the largest equity fundraising round ever by a European tech company, lifting its valuation above €21B ($24.39B). New backers Advent, BlackRock, and Luxembourg joined existing investors ASML and PSG Equity, as Mistral's annual recurring revenue reached slightly above $1B, with an IPO possible but not imminent. (29)

Polymarket launches Squads for social prediction trading

Polymarket launched Squads, a social feature letting US users create private groups to chat, share positions, and trade alongside friends within the app, timed to the start of football season. The launch coincides with Polymarket HQ, a new football-season ad campaign directed by Peter Berg featuring LeBron James, Derek Jeter, and other athletes, following the recent debut of Polymarket Perps for trading crypto, stocks, and other assets. (30)

Positron raises $875M at $5B valuation for AI chips

Positron raised $875M at a $5B valuation, up sharply from $1B just six months ago, co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, and Netscape co-founder Jim Clark. The Reno-based startup, led by former Lambda and Groq executives, has shipped roughly 50 of its previous-generation Atlas server racks to Oracle and counts Jump Trading and Parasail as customers, while finishing its next chip, Asimov, built with up to 2.3 terabytes of memory for fast AI inference. (31)

Shield AI nears $20B valuation amid defense boom

Shield AI is in talks to raise funding at a valuation of at least $20B, up roughly 60% from $12.7B just five months ago, following wins including a June Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft contract and a May Pentagon drone-swarm pilot program. The company has raised over $3B total, and recently used prior funding to acquire simulation software maker Aechelon Technology, as investor interest in defense-tech startups continues to surge. (32)

CHART OF THE WEEK

Direct secondary growth shows no signs of slowing

Annualized direct secondary market value has climbed every single quarter for over a year, with the pace actually picking up as it goes.

This is a market moving in one direction, quarter after quarter, without pause. Direct secondaries have gone from a workaround to a real channel for private market liquidity.

This kind of consistent growth points to something structural. More investors want a way to trade private tech exposure directly, on their own terms, without waiting for a fund's timeline to align with theirs.

The Stableton Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 strategy is built around this exact shift, using direct secondaries to give investors exposure to private blue-chip technology leaders on more flexible terms.

THE UNTOLD UNICORN STORY

Kraken: Born from Bitcoin's biggest disaster

Jesse Powell, co-founder and former CEO of Kraken. (33)

Kraken was founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell after he witnessed firsthand the chaos inside Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange at the time. When Mt. Gox was hacked in June 2011, Powell flew to Tokyo on a last-minute flight, went straight from the airport to the company's offices without even dropping off his luggage, and spent weeks helping the exchange recover (34). What he saw convinced him the exchange was doomed.

Just one month later, he co-founded Kraken with Thanh Luu, building it as a secure alternative for when Mt. Gox inevitably collapsed. In 2020, Kraken became the first cryptocurrency company in U.S. history to receive a bank charter, and in March 2026, Kraken Financial became the first crypto-native bank to connect directly to the Federal Reserve. (35)

Fun Fact: Powell named the exchange after the legendary Norse sea monster because he wanted it to convey something intelligent, powerful, and secure. Kraken has never suffered a major security breach, outlasting competitors and dozens of other exchanges that have been hacked or collapsed over the years. (36)

Did you know? Kraken is one of the 20 companies in our Stableton Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 strategy, a systematic, index approach that aims to outperform public benchmarks with low-cost fees, and without a performance fee. Click below for more information.

SOURCES

1 - CNBC, 2 - NPR, 3 - CNBC, 4 - The Guardian, 5 - Bloomberg, 6 - Figure AI, 7 - The Guardian, 8 - Anduril, 9 - Financial Times, 10 - Reuters, 11 - Axios, 12 - BigGo Finance, 13 - TechTarget, 14 - GamesIndustry.biz, 15 - BigGo Finance, 16 - The Guardian, 17 - OpenAI, 18 - Bloomberg, 19 - Reuters, 20 - TechTarget, 21 - CoinDesk, 22 - Financial Times, 23 - Reuters, 24 - Finextra Research, 25 - Bloomberg, 26 - Bloomberg, 27 - Aviation Week, 28 - EU-Startups, 29 - The Wall Street Journal, 30 - PR Newswire, 31 - The Wall Street Journal, 32 - The Information, 33 - CoinDesk, 34 - Bloomberg, 35 - Reuters, 36 - Kraken