Fundrise’s venture fund, which owns private tech giants like Anthropic and SpaceX, surges as retail investors pile in
The fund’s blockbuster public debut underscores how hungry retail investors are to get a piece of private companies.
Fundrise Innovation Fund, a publicly traded venture fund that owns some of the biggest names in private tech, is up more than 750% since it went public last week.
The fund, which bills itself as a “public ticker for private tech,” holds stakes in companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. The fund went public on March 19 with a share price of $31.25, and rose to over $270 by Tuesday morning.
The fund has become a recent favorite of retail traders, with its ticker increasingly dotting forums like Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, as they clamor to get their hands on exposure to high-growth private companies. Fundrise’s VCX owns a piece of nearly every major artificial intelligence startup, plus companies like Databricks and Anduril.
Fundrise, the company behind the fund, is best known for giving investors with as little as $10 exposure to the real estate market. It launched its venture fund in 2022, and it just listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker VCX.
Trading publicly gives investors more liquidity. Previously, investors in the fund had to submit liquidation requests that could take months to fulfill. But it can also mean that retail investors seeking access to exposure to these companies will pay a premium for it.
