Companies such as Stripe, SpaceX, and Databricks are showing that it’s possible to scale into the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars without ever becoming public.
Investors are pricing these companies through private and secondary markets — showing that the function an initial public offering (IPO) used to serve is already being replaced elsewhere.
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One of the biggest forces eroding the traditional IPO pipeline is the rise of secondary markets. Late-stage companies can facilitate investor liquidity through structured secondary sales, tender offers and crossover rounds without listing publicly.
According to data from PitchBook, global transaction volumes for secondaries hit a record $226 billion in 2025, up 41% from 2024.
“The secondaries world has expanded exponentially over the past three years,” said Montserrat Serra-Janer, global head of Private Markets Sales (Securities Services and Prime Finance Sales) at JPMorgan Chase. “We’ve seen huge growth, and we’re also seeing increased interest in our secondaries intermediation capabilities from both clients and prospects.”
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