The IPO Is No Longer Where Investing In SpaceX Begins

What's New

The line between public and private ownership, long treated as the starting gate for equity investors, has quietly become a checkpoint instead of a starting line. Morningstar's analysis of SpaceX's IPO shows why. After 24 years as a private company, SpaceX finally listed on June 12, 2026, but rather than treating that moment as an entry point, the Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index had already been tracking SpaceX's value creation for years through its private sleeve, and will keep tracking it through the transition rather than restart at listing. The index was purpose built to follow a company's full lifecycle, combining the 90 largest public US companies with the 10 largest late stage venture backed private companies into one benchmark.

Why It Matters

Investors who wait for an IPO to gain exposure to companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks are arriving after much of the value has already been created, since these companies now build enormous scale while still private. Secondary markets have stepped in to fill that gap, with US venture secondary transaction volume reaching $112 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, the first time that figure exceeded public listing proceeds. Morningstar's own performance data suggests investors who held private market exposure through a hybrid index captured meaningfully more return than those who waited for a listing.

Big Picture Drivers

• Longevity: Companies are staying private for far longer while reaching far greater scale, as SpaceX's 24 year path to its IPO demonstrates.

• Secondary Markets: Venture secondary volume hit $112 billion in Q1 2026, becoming the primary liquidity and price discovery channel for late stage private companies.

• Index Design: The Modern Market 100 blends a 90% public and 10% private allocation, rebalanced quarterly and reconstituted twice a year, so no single listing event resets exposure.

• Lockup Continuity: SpaceX remains in the index's private sleeve through a 180 day post listing lockup, preserving uninterrupted exposure rather than treating the IPO as a reset point.

• Performance Edge: The index's private market sleeve has outperformed its public sleeve by 5.81 percentage points over the past 10 years, concentrated in AI, space, cloud infrastructure, fintech, and defense technology.

By The Numbers

• $112 billion: US venture secondary transaction volume in Q1 2026, exceeding public listing proceeds for the first time.

• 90/10: The public to private allocation split built into the Modern Market 100 Index.

• 16.60%: Annualized return since inception for the Modern Market 100 Index, versus 13.31% for the Morningstar US Market Index.

• 5.81 points: Ten year outperformance of the index's private sleeve over its public sleeve.

• 180 days: The post listing lockup period SpaceX must clear before being evaluated for the index's public sleeve.

Key Trends to Watch

• Watch whether SpaceX ranks among the 90 largest eligible US companies by float adjusted market cap at the next reconstitution, which would move it from the private sleeve into the public sleeve.

• Watch whether other pre IPO giants, including OpenAI and Anthropic, get folded into similar hybrid benchmarks well before their own eventual listings.

• Watch whether venture secondary volume keeps outpacing public listing proceeds, further cementing private markets as the dominant liquidity channel for scaled companies.

• Watch whether competing index providers respond to the Modern Market 100's early performance edge by building their own public private hybrid benchmarks.

The Wrap

Morningstar's underlying message is that the IPO has stopped functioning as the moment value creation becomes investable, it is now simply a milestone inside a much longer growth story. With the Modern Market 100 posting a 16.60% annualized return against 13.31% for a public only benchmark, the cost of waiting for a listing to show up is no longer theoretical, it shows up directly in returns.