Why the most expensive Seed deals are the cheapest | E2299

June 10, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The venture capital world is watching a single number this week: $135. That is the fixed price Elon Musk set for SpaceX’s IPO, no range, take it or leave it—and the offering is already two and a half to three times oversubscribed. SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are collectively preparing roughly $3.5 trillion in liquidity, a sum greater than all IPO dollars raised in the previous decade combined. For a market that spent the last two years wondering if the exit door had frozen shut, the thaw is sudden and enormous.

The liquidity deluge and what it signals

The three mega-IPOs are not an isolated event, according to Tomaz Tunguz of Theory Ventures. They signal a broad reopening of the exit market. Other S-1 filings are appearing, including Bending Spoons, a holding company that buys legacy businesses and reinvigorates them with AI-native coding practices. The sheer scale of demand is the headline: the combined value of these three offerings exceeds the total of all U.S. IPO dollars raised in the prior decade. Michael Downing of Castalia Capital agrees that the incoming liquidity is enormous, with many more companies lined up to follow through the window.

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What you'll learn

1 (01:50) **IPO Wave: SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI** - Discussion of three massive IPOs representing ~$3.5T in liquidity, starting with SpaceX pricing at $135/share.
2 (04:57) **Growth Expectations Have Shifted Dramatically** - Paige explains that the bar for Series A has risen from 3x to 10x year-over-year revenue growth, especially for AI-native companies.
3 (11:36) **Founder Power vs. Capital: The New Balance** - Michael observes founders controlling their destiny more than ever, with options to refuse or structure terms aggressively.
4 (15:26) **IPO Pick: Which Lab Would You Buy?** - Paige picks Anthropic (personal workflow preference for Claude), while Michael and Tomas offer nuanced takes on OpenAI's consumer device bets and ad-model potential.
5 (18:07) **The Return of Founder-Friendly Dynamics** - Michael recounts a shift from 2021’s founder-as-king era through the 2022-2023 bridge-round crunch back to today’s founder leverage.
6 (20:53) **Token Spend as the New Burn** - Michael notes companies raising $25M just to cover inference costs, not hiring; Tomas frames this as “the financialization of compute.”
7 (25:55) **Sovereign Wealth and Crossover Funds Reshape Later Stages** - Michael points to Mubadala, G42, Temasek, and crossover funds (Fidelity, T. Rowe) becoming more aggressive in private rounds.

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Show Notes

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Two days before SpaceX launches the largest IPO in history at a flat $135/share, our VC roundtable drops a scorcher: The top 1% of seed deals might actually be underpriced. Plus: the "Sequoia scam" dual-tranche controversy, tokens-for-equity deals, and whether Claude Fable 5 is a true step function.

Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), Michael Downing (Castalia Capital), and Paige Doherty (Behind Genius Ventures) join Alex to go deep on Seed investing, startup economics, AI spend, and the impact of smarter AI on the founder journey.

Guest Links:

Tomasz Tunguz: https://x.com/ttunguz

Theory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/

Michael Downing: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldowning/

Castalia Capital: https://castalia.capital/

Paige Doherty: https://x.com/paigefinnn

Behind Genius Ventures: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com

Show Links:

Anthropic’s IPO announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-sec

OpenAI’s IPO announcement: https://openai.com/index/openai-submits-confidential-s-1/

Bending Spoons F-1 filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2004711/000110465926071170/tm2613674-7_f1.htm

SpaceX IPO filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026040364/spaceexplorationtechnologib.htm