Buying Shares

The market for late-stage venture-backed companies has grown significantly in recent years, emerging as a potential growth engine for portfolios. In the past, many of the largest and most successful startups saw an IPO as the ultimate goal to achieve liquidity for early investors and founders. Today, many companies are delaying or foregoing IPOs, with the average time between a company’s founding and its IPO increasing from just under seven years in 2014 to nearly 11 years in 2024. And while people often refer to late-stage venture-backed companies as the “pre-IPO market,” some of these companies may choose to remain private forever, as they are able to raise capital in the private market without the need to go public.