August Highlights: Cap-weighted recovery met private company dispersion
Performance in the private market reversed course in August. The Forge Private Market Index (FPMI), which reflects private company constituents, declined 0.64%, while the Forge Accuidity Private Market Index (FAPMI), whose universe includes public post-IPO exposure, rose 5.09%. Public market comparables also advanced, with SPY up 2.68% and QQQ up 4.18%. U.S. indexes finished August higher as software and technology shares recovered from July pressure.1 Within FAPMI, SpaceX (+32.59%) helped turn July's post-IPO drag into August support.
The divergence between the two benchmarks widened in August. FPMI's modest decline showed that August was not a broad rally across private companies, while FAPMI benefited from a rebound in public post-IPO names and several larger constituents.
The Forge Chips thematic basket rose 8.42%, the Forge Consumer thematic basket gained 4.33%, and the Forge Aerospace & Defense (A&D) thematic basket advanced 2.20%. The Forge Fintech thematic basket rose 1.89%, while the Forge Artificial Intelligence (AI) thematic basket was nearly flat at 0.02%, underscoring the uneven performance across private-market themes.
Cap-weighted exposure recovered
FAPMI's August gain was helped by SpaceX's rebound after a difficult July, while Kalshi (+59.09%), Netskope (+21.60%) and Databricks (+9.44%) also moved higher. Databricks' move coincided with reports that it raised $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation after investor demand exceeded its initial fundraising target.2 Cerebras (-7.28%) remained a counterweight, underscoring that public-price exposure continued to cut both ways inside the cap-weighted benchmark.
July's post-IPO concerns faded, but they did not disappear. Reports continued to frame SpaceX's trading around post-IPO share supply, lockup dynamics and investor appetite following its July selloff.3 The episode again highlighted how quickly public markets resolve uncertainty.
Private company moves stayed narrow
On the private company side, the largest moves were highly concentrated. Stoke Space (+198.45%) was the clearest A&D standout, contributing 8.07% to the A&D basket. The company had earlier extended its Series D financing to $860 million as it continued developing its fully reusable Nova launch vehicle.4 Ayar Labs (+40.02%) was the strongest Chips constituent, contributing 9.17% to the Chips basket. Ayar Labs has positioned co-packaged optics as a way to address bandwidth, latency and power constraints in rack-scale AI infrastructure and joined NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion ecosystem in June.5
Other positive private company moves included Kraken (+33.93%), Discord (+17.50%), Abridge (+15.94%), Skild AI (+9.89%), Saronic (+9.05%), Epirus (+8.24%) and Fanatics (+6.07%). The gains extended beyond a handful of names, but they were not enough to lift FPMI overall because a separate group of private companies moved lower or remained flat.
The downside included Consensys (-23.18%), Rippling (-17.77%), Glean (-14.25%), Liquid Death (-13.43%), Lyten (-13.07%), Cribl (-12.55%) and Anduril (-12.19%). SambaNova Systems (-7.28%) also pulled back after its July surge. Despite several outsized winners, FPMI finished the month slightly negative.
Themes split beneath the surface
Chips was the strongest thematic area, rising 8.42% as Ayar Labs more than offset smaller weakness from PsiQuantum (-1.89%) and flat performance from Lightmatter (+0.00%). A&D was more conflicted: Stoke Space provided the largest lift, but Anduril subtracted 7.64% from the A&D basket, leaving the theme up 2.20% rather than sharply higher.
Consumer gained 4.33%, with strength from Discord, Fanatics, Zipline International (+1.41%) and WHOOP (+1.23%) offsetting weaker names such as Thrive Market (-9.25%) and The Farmer's Dog (-1.03%). Fintech rose 1.89%, helped by Kraken while Consensys and Ripple (-3.74%) weighed on the theme.
AI was effectively flat at 0.02%. Databricks and Skild AI provided support, but Anduril, Glean and Lambda (-6.51%) offset much of that strength. AI-related companies did not move in lockstep.
IPO attention shifted toward public market proof points
The IPO pipeline remained a central backdrop for the private market, but August's news flow put more emphasis on the scale and financial proof points that could accompany eventual public listings. Anthropic (+0.00%) had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 in June, giving it the option to go public after SEC review and subject to market conditions.6 Reports in August said Anthropic expected to tell investors it sees a total addressable market exceeding $30 trillion7 and that its revenue run rate had surpassed $65 billion ahead of a possible IPO.8
OpenAI (+0.00%) remained in the same conversation. The company had also submitted a confidential S-1 and said it had not decided on timing,9 while separate August coverage said OpenAI CFO Sara Friar told employees that the company would be public in 2027 and could make its market debut sooner if its business continued to inflect10 and that its ChatGPT ads business had reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than a year.11 Together, those developments are notable given the companies' combined Forge implied valuation of roughly $1.86 trillion. Their scale continues to shape demand for sought-after late-stage, venture-backed AI companies that have seen substantial valuation step-ups over the past 18 months.
August was constructive, but selective
August's headline was a cap-weighted rebound alongside weak equal-weighted performance.
FAPMI rose +5.09% as public post-IPO exposure recovered, while FPMI declined -0.64% as private-company performance remained uneven. Chips led thematic performance, Consumer and A&D advanced, and AI was nearly flat. The month reinforced that performance in the private market is being set company by company, with public-market readiness, liquidity and company-specific demand continuing to matter as much as broad risk appetite.
