The venture market is suffering from a prolonged lack of liquidity. According to Axios' Dan Primack, the entire industry is pinning its hopes on three massive potential IPOs: SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI. Successful offerings from these giants could single-handedly solve the return problems that have plagued VCs for years.

SpaceX's IPO success demonstrates the power of 'manufactured scarcity'—creating massive demand for a small float of available shares. This strategy drives up the initial valuation and has become the new playbook for upcoming tech IPOs like Anthropic and OpenAI, which are likely reducing their offering sizes to replicate the effect.

The success of the massive SpaceX IPO may hinge on whether Elon Musk's large base of retail investors from Tesla follows him. If this "army of online fans" invests heavily, it will prove that retail capital is a viable source for funding mega-IPOs, de-risking the path for other private giants like OpenAI and Anthropic.

OpenAI's $110B round, heavily funded by strategic partners, is pushing the limits of what private capital can provide. Even giants like Amazon and NVIDIA have finite free cash flow to invest. This exhaustion of private funding sources means the next logical step for companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX is a public offering.

Despite massive operating losses, OpenAI is likely accelerating its IPO to get to market before Anthropic. This allows OpenAI to set the investment narrative and valuation benchmark, rather than reacting to a potentially faster-growing competitor's story.

Elon Musk fundamentally shifted SpaceX's narrative from a space exploration company to a major AI infrastructure player by securing massive cloud deals with Anthropic and Google. This maneuver was key to its record-breaking IPO valuation, transforming market perception almost overnight.

SpaceX is strategically positioning itself as an AI company for its IPO, citing a massive $28.5 trillion addressable market, with 93% from enterprise AI. This narrative shift is a clear attempt to attract tech investors and justify a valuation far beyond its current space-related revenue.

Anthropic's S-1 filing, coupled with IPO rumors for SpaceX and OpenAI, indicates a strategic rush among tech's most valuable private firms to access public funds. This is likely driven by the immense capital required for AI development and a desire to capture investor enthusiasm first.

The market isn't pricing SpaceX as a pure AI model company. Its recent pivot to becoming a "Neo Cloud" provider with durable revenue streams, combined with the powerful "Elon market halo," means its IPO performance won't be a reliable indicator for upcoming offerings from pure-play AI labs like OpenAI or Anthropic.