“There’s more money floating around the Bay Area than people have ever seen,” declared The Wall Street Journal on September 9, 2026. The source? A wave of wealth creation that’s unfolding almost entirely in private markets.^1^
All-cash home purchases. Backyard saunas and cold plunges. $25,000-a-month tours of Europe.^2^
SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, and Stripe have minted hundreds of new millionaires in San Francisco alone, even though only one has gone public.^1^
And for SpaceX, it’s not the investors who bought in after the IPO who are celebrating. As of November 12, 2026, the stock is down 12.64 percent since its debut from its first-day closing price of $160.95 per share.^3^ It’s early employees who struck it big, along with venture capital investors, many of whom have seen the largest returns in their firms’ histories.^4^
This is the story of the new economy: enormous fortunes made before companies go public.
There’s a silver lining. Just a few years ago, a headline like that in The Wall Street Journal would have left individual investors with little choice but to watch. Now, that’s changing.^5^ Funds currently offered on Crowd Street provide individual investors with exposure to high-profile private companies—including exposure to SpaceX prior to its IPO.^6^ Fund holdings vary and are subject to change.
Here’s how the door to investing in pre-IPO companies is opening to more investors, and what that could mean for you.
The Shift from Public to Private Markets
You might be thinking, “People have always received pre-IPO equity in their companies. What’s different about today?”
Quite a bit.
In the 1990s and 2000s, when a business needed to raise a lot of capital, going public was the natural next step. There was only so much money available in private markets. Today, private markets have grown so much that companies can raise billions of dollars and reach trillion-dollar valuations, all before their IPO.^7^
This means that by the time a company lists on the Nasdaq, public-market investors may have already missed the steepest part of its growth curve.
You can see the impact in IPO performance. When a company goes public early in its life cycle, there's theoretically a lot of growth left to capture. But when it does most of its growing while still private, there may be less left on the table for public-market investors.^8^
Consider the 20 largest IPOs between 2016 and 2025. BlackRock found that 13 of them generated negative returns both three and 12 months after going public. Only six generated positive returns at both intervals.^9^
Many early private investors, meanwhile, made a killing.^10^
Source: “Not every blockbuster IPO becomes a blockbuster stock,” BlackRock Advisor Center, Jun 12, 2026.
You Don't Have to Be an Early Employee
So, software engineers in Silicon Valley are making tens of millions of dollars by cashing out their equity. Most of us will never be early hires at SpaceX or Anthropic. Does that mean we're out of luck?
Not necessarily.
Large stakes in private companies are also held by professional investment firms, like venture capital firms and asset managers.^11^ And individual investors are gaining new ways to invest alongside them.
Crowd Street is the marketplace that connects individual investors to these opportunities.^12^ The platform features funds from investment managers overseeing billions or trillions of dollars in assets, including funds with significant holdings in high-profile companies such as Databricks.^6^ Fund holdings vary and are subject to change.
It’s important to remember two things. First, investing in a private business through a fund is different from receiving equity as an early employee, including in your cost basis, ownership structure, and potential returns. Second, private market investing is never a sure bet. It comes with real risks, including illiquidity, limited disclosure and reporting, and the potential loss of principal. These risks should be taken seriously, and each investor must decide whether private market investments are right for their portfolio.
But if you’re eager to participate in this new economy, where companies are staying private longer, Crowd Street offers a way. Today, more than 300,000 members use the platform to access private market investment opportunities through a simple, secure process.
Explore pre-IPO investment opportunities with Crowd Street today.
Past performance is not indicative of future results.
