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BFD Expert Voices - Climate Deals

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SpaceX's $1 trillion-plus IPO will unlock waves of capital for deep tech startups.

Why it matters: The capital will fuel the growing momentum behind hardware in the AI era.  

Zoom in: Investors and entrepreneurs see the IPO as the latest validation that VCs can achieve blockbuster returns backing contrarian companies solving hard engineering problems.

SpaceX has been private for 24 years. It's been so long that many of the partners who made these initial investments are now at different firms.

Some of SpaceX's earliest investors include deep tech-focused firms Founders Fund, DFJ, and Valor Equity Partners. DBL Partners' Ira Ehrenpreis owns substantial shares and joined the board in February.

Investors that held and grew their SpaceX shares could see a potential massive payout.

The IPO will also provide validation for hardware investing for LPs, investors say.

Follow the money: The IPO will also unlock capital for SpaceX employees, many of whom are entrepreneurial, engineering-focused and mission-driven. 

The SpaceX IPO is going to deliver "a flood of great entrepreneurs coming out" of the company, Eric Rosenblum, partner with Temasek's Xora Innovation said in an interview last month. "The listing creates a lot of wealth, and they start to fund each other to start startups."

Some SpaceX mafia ventures could be in the climate space, says Voyager Ventures partner Leo Banchik, as "there are a lot of SpaceX-ers deeply motivated by climate."

Current examples include turbine maker Arbor Energy, which Voyager backed, and portable desalination startup Vital Lyfe, but Banchik says the IPO will be an accelerant. 

Zoom out: SpaceX's offering will also help unlock space as an ecosystem for investing, enabling startups relying on low-cost launches and building space-based solar or space-based data centers.

The bottom line: The SpaceX IPO unlocks capital across the stack for deep tech, as VCs see hardware as a more durable way to invest in an era where LLMs can reproduce software in days.

SpaceX's IPO is a key moment for deep tech

Investors are increasingly interested in hardware over software in the AI era.

Animated illustration of a stock ticker screen with pixelated rocket emojis moving across it from right to left.

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SpaceX&#x27;s <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="$1 trillion-plus IPO" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2026/05/20/elon-musk-spacex-ipo" data-vars-content-id="a0fda859-3cca-41f5-a901-6343a3e0a23d" data-vars-headline="SpaceX&#x27;s IPO is a key moment for deep tech" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2026/05/20/elon-musk-spacex-ipo" target="_self">$1 trillion-plus IPO</a> will unlock waves of capital for deep tech startups.Why it matters: The capital will fuel the growing momentum behind hardware in the AI era.

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SpaceX's IPO is a key moment for deep tech

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