Are 2025 IPOs Paying Off for Secondary Investors?
This week, Circle’s IPO made headlines—but it's just one in a wave of 2025 listings that are reshaping the market for venture-backed companies.
So far, every IPO this year has been a down round compared to the company’s last private valuation. But despite that, public market investors are seeing strong gains—and secondary investors are benefiting too.
Yesterday, Circle, the stablecoin issuer, opened at $69 and soared as high as $103.75, before closing at $83.23.
And it’s not alone:

• eToro priced at $52, now trades at $67.58
• CoreWeave listed at $40, now trading at $136.48
• Hinge Health priced at $32, closed day one at $37.56, a 17% pop from IPO

🆕 IPO Valuation Updates
Several high-profile IPOs are still ahead, and many have updated their expected valuations:

• Chime is in talks with investors around an $11B IPO valuation, up from a $7.4B secondary price one year ago.
• Netskope plans to raise over $500M, targeting a valuation over $5B (vs. $3.7B last year).
• Omada Health went public at $19 per share, giving it a $1.2B valuation.
• ShipBob is preparing for an IPO at around $4B.
• Voyager Technologies, a space and defense company, is expected to IPO at $1.6B.
• Klarna is now expected to delay its IPO until fall, with an updated target of $15B (up from $12B on secondaries).
• SeatGeek is exploring an IPO around $1.35B, nearly flat from $1.3B in 2024.

For secondary investors, IPO valuations are generally higher than where shares traded 12 months ago, but YoY growth varies sharply:

• Circle: $6.9B IPO valuation vs. $4.49B → +54% YoY
• CoreWeave: $18.5B vs. $17B → +8.5% YoY
• Chime: $11B vs. $7.4B → +49% YoY
• Netskope: $5B vs. $3.7B → +35% YoY
• SeatGeek: $1.35B vs. $1.3B → +4% YoY
• Klarna: $15B vs. $12B → +25% YoY

More IPOs are lining up, and pricing clarity is improving.

🚀 SpaceX Forecasts $15.5B in 2025 Revenue—With or Without NASA
SpaceX is on track to generate $15.5 billion in revenue this year, according to CEO Elon Musk, who shared the figure on X. Roughly $1.1 billion of that is expected to come from NASA contracts.
But SpaceX’s reliance on government funding may soon diminish. Musk projected that by 2026, SpaceX’s commercial revenue will surpass NASA’s entire budget, which former President Trump has proposed slashing from $24.8B to $18.8B.
What if Trump follows through on threats to pull federal contracts from Musk-owned companies?
Exclusive financial data shows that while government launches still bring in billions, the bulk of SpaceX’s future growth is in Starlink, the satellite internet business. Revenue from Starlink is accelerating, and its share of SpaceX’s total revenue is expected to grow significantly next year—regardless of what happens in Washington.

🤖 xAI Secondary Sale Values Company at $113B—But Political Risk Looms
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is allowing employees to sell $300 million in shares, valuing the company at $113 billion—the same figure Musk cited in March when xAI acquired his social platform X. The secondary sale follows similar moves by OpenAI and Anthropic, and reflects a broader trend of offering early liquidity to employees as companies delay IPOs.
But the timing comes as political pressure intensifies.
xAI is also seeking to raise $5 billion in debt, with Morgan Stanley leading the effort. However, yesterday’s escalation in rhetoric from Donald Trump, who has threatened to strip Musk’s companies of federal contracts, may complicate the financing.
While xAI is not directly reliant on U.S. government dollars, its ecosystem is. Musk’s X platform has been used for government communications and election operations.

💻 AI Coding Startups Burn Cash—And Clash Over Model Access
AI coding startups like Cursor and Windsurf (formerly Codeium) are growing fast—but bleeding money. According to investor sources cited by Reuters, both operate with negative gross margins, meaning they’re spending more on AI model usage than they’re earning from customers.
The situation has worsened for Windsurf, which recently lost access to Anthropic’s Claude 3.x models—after the two companies publicly touted a partnership earlier this year. Why the sudden cutoff?
Two reasons:

• OpenAI is reportedly in talks to acquire Windsurf, making it less appealing for Anthropic to support a potential rival.
• Windsurf has started developing its own models, prompting Anthropic to pull back further.

📱 Samsung Taps Perplexity, Threatens Google’s Mobile Search Stronghold
Samsung is nearing a deal to invest in Perplexity and integrate its AI-powered search into Galaxy devices, Bloomberg reports. The move could weaken Google’s grip on mobile search, as Samsung has long been its most valuable Android hardware partner.

🔐 OpenAI Debuts “Sign in with ChatGPT” for App Integrations
OpenAI has introduced a “Sign in with ChatGPT” feature, starting with Codex CLI. With over 600 million monthly users, OpenAI is encouraging developers to build native integrations around its platform and authentication layer.

💻 Mistral Launches AI Coding Assistant, Joins Dev Tool Wars
Mistral has released a new AI coding assistant, entering direct competition with GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf. The move signals Mistral’s growing ambition to expand beyond foundation models into productized developer tools.

📉 Revolut Eyes Crypto Derivatives—Despite UK Ban
Revolut is preparing to launch a crypto derivatives product, even as UK regulators maintain a ban on retail access to the high-risk instruments.
The fintech is hiring a general manager to build out the platform, aiming to create a “trusted and profitable” global offering. While the UK’s FCA barred crypto derivatives in 2021—calling them dangerous for retail investors—Revolut’s crypto legal chief has publicly criticized the decision.

🪖 Meta and Anduril Partner on Military AR/VR Devices
Meta and defense tech startup Anduril are teaming up to develop augmented and virtual reality devices for the U.S. military, using Meta’s AI models and Anduril’s surveillance software, Lattice.
The two companies have jointly bid on a U.S. Army contract worth up to $100 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The deal reflects Meta’s growing push into defense applications—a shift that began in November when it opened its AI tools to U.S. agencies and contractors in the national security space.
The partnership also reunites Meta with Palmer Luckey, Anduril’s co-founder and the creator of Oculus VR, which Meta acquired in 2014. The two parted ways in 2017 after a politically charged fallout.

💸 Monzo Posts Profit Again as Secondary Valuation Climbs 43% YoY
Monzo reported a £60.5M pre-tax profit for the year ending March 2025—its second consecutive year in the black. Revenue hit £1.24B, driven by a 48% surge in deposits and strong lending growth.
The UK neobank now has 12M+ customers and is expanding into the EU (via Ireland) and the U.S. Despite growing IPO speculation, CEO TS Anil says it’s still “way too early” to confirm any timeline.
Meanwhile, Monzo’s secondary valuation is up 43% year-over-year.

🧠 Grammarly Raises $1B—No Equity, Revenue-Linked Repayment
Grammarly has raised $1 billion from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, with no equity dilution. Instead, GC will receive a capped return tied to revenue generated by the capital—specifically, revenue linked to customer acquisition funded by the investment.
Grammarly says it’s already profitable and generating over $700 million in annual revenue, but the cash injection gives it flexibility to accelerate growth without giving up equity.
While the structure resembles a loan, it reflects GC’s conviction that Grammarly’s go-to-market engine is efficient enough to turn funding directly into revenue—capital in, growth out.

💸 Deals & Fundraising Roundup
Snorkel, which helps enterprises evaluate and fine-tune AI models, raised $100M in a Series D. Valuation: $1.3B.
The humanoid robotics company Figure AI raised $1.5B at a $38B pre-money valuation, reaching $39.5B post-money—one of the year’s biggest AI funding rounds.
Cohere is in talks to raise $500M+ at a valuation above $5.5B, as demand for enterprise LLM solutions grows.
The insurtech firm Bolttech raised $147M in Series C funding, at a $1.95B pre-money and $2.1B post-money valuation.
Healthcare AI startup Abridge is reportedly raising $300M, led by Andreessen Horowitz, at a $5B pre-money valuation.