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🚀 Top 5 Private Markets & Economics News
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Happy Sunday, Crowd!
Good morning.
While most people spent their Sunday scrolling headlines about stock market noise, something bigger is happening in private markets.
Real liquidity.
For the first time since 2021.
Here are the 5 trends reshaping where wealth gets created, and what to do about them.
Let's make this quick.
Read time: 4 minutes
IMMERSED > Oculus
This Pre-IPO Stock Is Up 4,000% Already
How do you follow 4,000% valuation growth? By preparing for what’s next. That’s what pre-IPO company Immersed did, reserving the Nasdaq ticker $IMRS.
But the real opportunity for investors is now, before public markets.
Why? Immersed changed the game in extended reality (XR), developing the Meta Quest store’s most popular productivity app. They have more than 1.5M users, including Fortune 500 teams, many who already use it up to 60 hours a week.
But that’s not all. Immersed’s soon-to-be-released XR headset has 2M more pixels than Apple’s Vision Pro for 70% less cost and weight. No wonder they’re projecting $71M in first-year sales.
Immersed is redefining the $250B+ future of work. That’s why 6,000+ investors have already secured pre-IPO shares in Immersed’s growth.
They have partnerships in place with Qualcomm and Samsung. Executives and founders from Palantir, Facebook, Reddit, and Sailpoint invested. You can, too. But there’s no time to waste. Invest in Immersed before the opportunity closes.
This is a paid advertisement for Immersed Regulation A+ offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.immersed.com/
1. Secondary Markets Hit $103 Billion (Exit Without the IPO)
The number: $103B in H1 2025 (+51% vs 2024)
What it means:
For 3 years, private investors were stuck.
No IPOs.
No acquisitions. No way out.
Secondaries became the escape hatch.
Instead of waiting for Stripe to IPO, you sell your shares to another investor at $100B valuation. You get liquid. They bet on the IPO pop.
Why this matters now:
McKinsey data shows distributions to investors fell to ~6% (vs much higher pre-2020). If you can't exit via IPO, you exit via secondaries.
The play: Late-stage companies offering employee tender offers = your entry point at pre-IPO prices.
2. IPOs Are Back — But Only for the Strong
The data: 60 U.S. IPOs in Q3 2025, raising $14.6B (biggest quarter since 2021)
Who's getting out:
✅ AI companies with explosive revenue (Anthropic, Databricks)
✅ Profitable SaaS with $500M+ revenue (Stripe, Canva)
✅ Strategic infrastructure plays (SpaceX)
Who's staying private:
❌ Unprofitable growth companies
❌ Revenue <$100M
❌ Messy cap tables
The lesson: The IPO window is open, but it's a velvet rope club. Make sure your late-stage bets can actually go public.
3. Private Equity Returns:
Financial Engineering is Dead
The old playbook (2010-2022):
Buy with cheap debt (rates near 0%)
Wait for multiples to expand
Flip for 3x
59% of returns = leverage + multiple expansion
The new reality (2023-2026):
Interest rates at 5% (debt is expensive)
Multiples flat (no expansion)
Returns must come from actually improving the business
What this means:
You can't just slap debt on a company and flip it anymore. You need operational excellence — revenue growth, margin expansion, AI-driven efficiency.
The opportunity: PE funds with operating partners and data infrastructure win. Financial engineers lose.
4. LPs Are Demanding Cash, Not Paper
The shift:
For decades, VCs reported returns in IRR (Internal Rate of Return) — theoretical gains based on markups.
Now LPs want DPI (Distributions to Paid-In) — actual cash returned.
Why:
2021 valuations looked amazing on paper. Then 2022-2024 crashed them. LPs got burned by paper gains that never materialized.
The new rule: Show me the money, not the markups.
What this means for you: When evaluating private market funds, ask "What's your DPI?" Not just "What's your IRR?"
5. AI Infrastructure = $3-4 Trillion Per Year by 2029
The projection (from Nvidia's CFO):
Total AI infrastructure investment could hit $3-4 trillion annually by 2029.
For context:
Entire U.S. defense budget: ~$900B/year
Global semiconductor industry: ~$600B/year
What counts as AI infrastructure:
GPUs and chips (Nvidia, AMD, startups)
Data centers (buildings, servers, networking)
Power and cooling (the bottleneck nobody's pricing in)
Software platforms (cloud, AI frameworks)
The opportunity:
This is the biggest infrastructure buildout in human history. Bigger than highways. Bigger than the internet.
Every dollar flows through private markets first.
Chip startups. Data center funds. Energy infrastructure. Cooling technology.
If you're not exposed to AI infrastructure, you're missing the trade of the decade.
🎯 How Founderscrowd Fits In
Our investment strategy aligns with exactly these shifts:
1. We focus on infrastructure, not apps.
The deals we source are in AI infrastructure, energy tech, robotics, and enterprise SaaS — categories where capital is concentrating and exits are more predictable.
2. We provide secondary access.
Many of our deals are secondary purchases of existing shares in companies like SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks — giving you pre-IPO exposure at discounts to eventual IPO pricing.
3. We help you build patience into your strategy.
Private market investing requires 7-10 year time horizons. Our portfolio approach (spreading $5K-$10K across 5-10 companies) helps you build diversification while accepting illiquidity.
This week's opportunities include:
Pre-IPO secondaries (companies filing for 2026 IPO)
Energy infrastructure plays (grid tech, power efficiency)
AI workflow automation (picks and shovels, not models)
The Bottom Line
Private markets aren't dead. They're maturing.
The 2010-2021 "easy money" era is over. You can't just buy anything with "AI" in the name and expect 10x.
But the opportunity is bigger.
Because the companies that survive this environment will have:
Real revenue and margins
Operational excellence
Solutions to $100B+ problems
Those companies will create more wealth than the entire last cycle.
Your 2026 Playbook
✅ DO THIS:
Focus on infrastructure over applications
Buy secondaries in proven winners (Stripe, Databricks, SpaceX)
Demand operational excellence, not just financial engineering
Ask for DPI, not IRR
Allocate to AI infrastructure (energy, chips, data centers)
❌ DON'T DO THIS:
Chase consumer AI hype
Believe paper gains without cash proof
Ignore liquidity timelines
Skip due diligence
The choice is simple:
Watch from the sidelines as private markets distribute $200B+ in liquidity this year.
Or position yourself to capture it.
Next week: SpaceX at $800B (pre-IPO price)
This week: Energy X (closes Friday)
$40/month locks in your lifetime rate.
Alberto
P.S. Trends don't make you money. Specific deals do.
This newsletter gives you the macro view. Premium gives you the micro execution.
2-4 pre-IPO deals per quarter. 47-page investment memos. First access to allocation.
Don't just understand the trends. Invest in them.
See you next week. ☕