Three VCs weigh AI frenzy, SpaceX IPO and market impact

The most important question hanging over AI right now is no longer whether the money is real. It is whether the next giant exits, from SpaceX to possible public debuts by OpenAI or Anthropic, create durable companies or simply fuel the same herd behavior at a larger scale.

Athens becomes a window into Silicon Valley’s current mood

At TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in Athens, staged as part of the Panathenea festival, Connie Loizos pressed three veteran investors on the state of venture capital, the wave of mega-IPOs ahead, and where they still see lasting opportunity. The lineup, Niko Bonatsos of Verdict Capital, Andreas Stavropoulos of Threshold Ventures, and Ben Blume of Atomico, gave the conversation unusual weight because each is looking at the same market from a different angle: early-stage investing, growth-stage capital, and the global circulation of venture wealth.

The backdrop matters. SpaceX is reportedly eyeing an IPO valuation around $1.75 trillion, with Reuters-linked reporting saying the company could seek to raise as much as $75 billion and list as soon as June 2026. If that happens, it would not just be a blockbuster for Elon Musk’s company. It would test how much capital the public markets can absorb before enthusiasm starts distorting the rest of the tech ecosystem.

SpaceX is the stress test for the AI era

The current frenzy is not really about one company. It is about the possibility that multiple giants could hit public markets in close succession, with SpaceX potentially followed by OpenAI and Anthropic. That raises a blunt market question: can a few names soak up so much investor attention and capital that they change pricing across the rest of the sector?

Recent reporting around SpaceX’s ties to Cursor makes that question even sharper. One account says SpaceX has secured an option tied to the code-generation startup worth $60 billion, or alternatively a $10 billion partnership. Whether the final structure is an acquisition, an option, or a commercial arrangement, the signal is the same: AI is no longer confined to software-only speculation. It is now intersecting with space, infrastructure, and the kinds of balance-sheet-heavy bets that force investors to think about scale in very different terms.

That is why the market impact matters beyond the headline valuation. In the short term, a huge listing can crowd the public market narrative around one or two companies. In the longer term, it can also reset what founders believe is possible, what venture firms think they can underwrite, and what late-stage investors will pay for growth.

Why some VCs think this is closer to a cycle than a mania

Andreas Stavropoulos drew the clearest historical parallel, comparing the moment to Google’s IPO. That listing, in August 2004, came after the pessimism that followed the dot-com crash and helped reopen a market that had been badly bruised by failed internet bets. CNBC has noted that Google’s offering produced a solid first-day return and left the company with a market capitalization above $27 billion, helping cement the reputation of Morgan Stanley banker Michael Grimes.

The analogy is useful because it shifts the debate away from whether an IPO is “too big” and toward what a successful liquidity event does to the broader economy. If the comparison holds, a giant listing is not just an exit. It is a capital redistribution mechanism. Wealth gets created, employees and early backers cash out, and some of that money moves back into startups, accelerators, angel rounds, and new venture funds.

Ben Blume made that logic explicit, arguing that major liquidity events generate wealth and returns that get recycled into the next generation of companies. In plain terms, that means the real market effect of a SpaceX-sized exit may not be the price tag itself. It may be the wave of fresh capital, new limited partners, and newly liquid founders who decide to start again.

What counts as a real moat in this phase

The language around AI often sounds abstract, but the investor signals are concrete. The firms that matter most are the ones with one or more of the following advantages:

• Early access to founders before the market crowds in, which Bonatsos highlighted by noting that Verdict’s co-founder was the first-ever investor in Cursor.

• Exposure to large, global markets rather than narrow product niches, a point Bonatsos tied to the current boom and immigrant founders.

• The ability to turn one successful company into many future bets, which is what Blume described when he talked about liquidity recycling.

• Historical credibility in selecting companies that can become category-defining infrastructure, not just applications riding the same wave of model access.

That is the practical translation of venture jargon. A real moat is not just a clever feature or a viral launch. It is access, timing, distribution, and the ability to compound capital across cycles. In the current AI market, those advantages matter more than ever because so much of the surface-level excitement is being driven by momentum rather than proof of durable margins.

The bubble question is really a discipline question

The danger in a moment like this is not that every big check is irrational. It is that investors start confusing liquidity with legitimacy. A $1.75 trillion IPO story, a $60 billion option tied to Cursor, and the possibility of OpenAI and Anthropic entering public markets can all reinforce the feeling that scale alone equals value. It does not.

The better test is whether these companies are building businesses that can survive beyond the cycle, with pricing power, repeatable demand, and enough technical depth to stay ahead of imitators. That is where the real moat lives, and that is also where the herd usually loses discipline.

For now, the venture crowd is behaving as if this is not the end of a mania but the beginning of a longer expansion. If the next wave of listings really does recycle wealth into new founders and new companies, the AI boom may end up looking less like a single speculative spike and more like a new formation of the market itself.