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AI Chip IPOs Surge 68%, April VC Hits $20.8B & IPO Pipeline Builds
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Two AI chipmakers surged 68% on debut while US startups raised $20.8B in April — but concentration risks and a crowded IPO calendar raise harder questions. Cerebras, Cerberus, SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all feature in today's briefing.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Two AI chipmakers went public this week and both surged sixty-eight percent on their first day. That's the headline.
Cerberus, a separate Nvidia competitor, priced at one hundred and eighty-five dollars and rocketed sixty-eight percent on day one. Then fell ten percent on Friday.
Pull back from the IPO window and the broader funding picture is significant. US startups raised twenty point eight billion dollars across four hundred and forty-two deals in April, up nearly sixty-four percent year over year.
The IPO calendar is getting crowded in a way that matters. SpaceX is reportedly targeting a June twelfth public debut at a one point seven five trillion dollar valuation, seeking roughly seventy-five billion dollars in the raise.
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square disclosed a core Microsoft position built in February, paying roughly twenty-one times forward earnings. The thesis centers on Microsoft's twenty-seven percent stake in OpenAI, which Ackman values at around two hundred billion dollars, an amount he believes the market is simply not pricing in.
On the regulatory side, the Senate Judiciary Committee has formally scheduled a June hearing on AI governance. The framing from Chair Grassley is pointed: he's calling it "Is This Social Media's Big Tobacco Moment?" Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and leaders from TikTok and Snap have been invited.
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