Startup Trends: Top 10 Companies with Highest Investor Demand
When seeking insights into market conditions for private companies, many investors look to Indications of Interest (IOI), which is generally a non-binding indication of a buyer or seller's interest in purchasing or selling a security.
IOIs can be used by underwriters prior to an initial public offering (IPO) to help them determine how to price the stock initially. In a secondary marketplace for private or public shares, an IOI typically means that a buyer or a seller is interested in entering into a transaction to buy or sell shares at or above a certain price.
Here are 10 firms that had the highest demand as per investors’ indications of interest so far this year on Forge Global.
Anthropic, an AI safety and research company
Anthropic, the creator of the Claude AI assistant, was founded by siblings and former OpenAI employees Dario and Daniela Amodei. In October, the company announced two new upgraded versions of Claude, one of which allows developers to direct Claude to use computers the way people do — including looking at a screen, clicking buttons, and typing text.
Major investors in Anthropic include Google, Amazon, Salesforce Ventures, Spark Capital, and Menlo Ventures.
Anthropic’s Forge Price™ is $36.01 as of November 22, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $22.08 billion, a 20% increase to its last funding round in March 2024.
Anduril, a defense technology developer
Anduril is a developer of defense technology. The company’s Lattice OS is an autonomous sensemaking and command-and-control platform that serves as the core system for its suite of capabilities. The Anduril team combines Silicon Valley engineers with military veterans.
Anduril’s Forge Price™ is $33.03 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $21.29 billion, a 52% increase to its last funding round in June 2024.
Cerebras, a maker of AI chips
Cerebras is a chipmaker and AI platform company. Cerebras announced in November 2024 that a single Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine achieved more than 1.1 million simulation steps per second, a rate 748 times faster than the world’s leading supercomputer. The company filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC for a proposed IPO at the end of September 2024.
Cerebras’ Forge Price™ is $40.08 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $7.7 billion, a 173% increase to its last funding round in September 2024.
SpaceX, a Private Market Magnificent 7 company
SpaceX is an aerospace startup led by Elon Musk. It is currently the largest satellite launch vehicle provider in the world, having launched 86% of all satellites in 2023.
NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract in June 2024 to develop the launch vehicle that will remove the International Space Station from orbit at its planned end in 2030.
SpaceX’s Forge Price™ is $113.96 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $203.5 billion, a 62.8% increase to its last funding round.
Databricks, a Private Market Magnificent 7 company
Databricks provides data analytics solutions to corporations. Bloomberg reported in November that Thrive Capital is in talks to acquire a $1 billion stake in Databricks, a deal that would value the company at about $55 billion.
Databrick’s Forge Price™ is $75.50 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $44.6 billion, a 2.7% increase to its last funding round in September 2023.
OpenAI, a Private Market Magnificent 7 company
OpenAI is the creator of the widely-used ChatGPT chatbot. In October 2024, the company closed a $6.6 billion funding round, which could make it one of the most valuable companies in the world.
OpenAI’s Forge Price™ is $295.29 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $171.3 billion, a 9.1% increase to its last funding round in October 2024.
Perplexity, an AI search company
Perplexity is an AI search company that allows users to answer questions with information on the internet, explore topics in depth through its Copilot feature, and interact with their own data to find information. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is finalizing a new funding round that would value it at $9 billion, triple its valuation a few months back.
Perplexity’s Forge Price™ is $119.23 as of November 21, 2024, giving it an implied valuation of $3.01 billion, unchanged from its last funding round in August 2024.
xAI, creator of the Grok chatbot
xAI is the second company in the top 10 for IOI led by Elon Musk. The company’s Grok is an AI chatbot designed to answer questions based on real-time knowledge of the world via the X social media platform.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company told investors in November 2024 that it raised $5 billion in a funding round that values it at $50 billion.
xAI’s Forge Price™ is $11.97 as of November 29, 2024, which implies a $24 billion valuation, unchanged from its last funding in May 2024.
Groq, an AI chipmaker
Groq produces chips that run generative AI models. Groq says its language processing units (LPUs) are specifically designed for AI inference and language and are fundamentally different from traditional graphics processing units (GPUs).
Groq’s Forge Price™ is $16.08 as of November 21, 2024, which implies a $2.81 billion valuation, unchanged from its last funding in August 2024.
Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange
Kraken offers a digital asset exchange platform to help drive cryptocurrency adoption. Bloomberg reported in June that the company may go public in 2025 after seeking $100 million in pre-IPO funding at a possible valuation of $10 billion in June 2024.
Kraken's Forge Price™ is $12.34 as of November 20, 2024, which implies a $3.4 billion valuation, a 38% decrease to its last funding round in May 2020.
