# 137 Ventures raises $700M, eyes SpaceX IPO - Category: **Business** - Publisher: **Psyll Magazine** - [https://psyll.com](https://psyll.com) - Author: **Adam Edwards** - [https://psyll.com/adam](https://psyll.com/adam) - Original article: [https://psyll.com/articles/business/137-ventures-raises-700m-eyes-spacex-ipo](https://psyll.com/articles/business/137-ventures-raises-700m-eyes-spacex-ipo) --- ![Main image](https://psyll.com/assets/image/137-ventures-raises-700m-eyes-spacex-ipo.jpg) **San Francisco growth firm 137 Ventures raised $700 million, boosting assets to $15 billion ahead of a projected SpaceX public listing valued at over $1 trillion** --- ## The secondary market liquidity play Most venture capital firms love to talk about "disrupting" industries while sitting on dry powder and waiting for a miracle. **137 Ventures** has spent the last 16 years doing something far more practical: providing liquidity to founders and early employees who are paper-rich but cash-poor. This morning, the San Francisco-based growth firm announced it has **closed two new funds totalling more than $700 million**. This capital injection pushes its total assets under management (AUM) past the **$15 billion mark**, cementing 137 Ventures as a heavyweight in the late-stage private markets ecosystem. The timing is not a coincidence. While the broader tech market has been wading through a period of cautious valuations, 137 Ventures is doubling down on a strategy that *prioritises companies with proven execution over speculative growth*. By focusing on secondary transactions, they allow the actual builders of these companies to de-risk their personal finances without forcing a premature exit for the company itself. It is a cynical - but remarkably effective - recognition that the traditional IPO window is often too slow for human timelines. ## Why secondary market investing has become the smart money's playbook The private-for-longer phenomenon is no accident. Stricter public market scrutiny, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs, and the rise of deep-pocketed crossover funds have collectively made staying private far more attractive for high-growth companies. As a result, the average time from founding to IPO has stretched well beyond a decade for many venture-backed giants. This creates a structural tension. Early employees and founders accumulate *enormous paper wealth* while being unable to pay a mortgage, diversify their savings, or fund their next venture. Secondary market specialists like 137 Ventures step into this gap - and in doing so, they have carved out one of the most defensible niches in the entire asset class. **By purchasing shares directly from insiders rather than the company itself**, secondary investors avoid the dilutive primary round dynamic and often acquire stakes at meaningful discounts to the last primary round price. The trade-off is illiquidity and opacity - but for a firm that has been patiently holding SpaceX shares since 2010, neither appears to be a dealbreaker. ## The SpaceX windfall The elephant in the room is, as always, Elon Musk's aerospace and AI giant. 137 Ventures has been a significant backer of **SpaceX since 2010** - long before "Starlink" was a household name or Falcon 9 boosters were sticking vertical landings on autonomous droneships. As of May 2026, the market buzz surrounding a potential SpaceX public listing has reached a fever pitch. According to Bloomberg, the company is **targeting a valuation exceeding $2 trillion**, a figure that would make it one of the most valuable entities on the planet and the *largest IPO in history*. The firm's SpaceX stake now **represents more than 1% of the company**, valued in excess of $10 billion - a return that few institutional investors of any kind can match over the same period. If SpaceX does head for the public markets this year, 137 Ventures stands to reap a monumental return on a 16-year-old bet. Most VC funds operate on a ten-year cycle, often forcing them to sell their best performers too early. By maintaining a long-term horizon and structured liquidity solutions, 137 has managed to stay on the cap table of a generational company while others were forced to exit. This new $700 million fund gives them the ammunition to either defend their position or hunt for the next unicorn currently trapped in the "private for longer" cycle. ## SpaceX + xAI: the merger that changes the valuation maths Earlier in 2026, **SpaceX completed a merger with Elon Musk's AI startup xAI**, a development that materially complicates - and arguably strengthens - the bull case for the combined entity's public listing. The merger brings together SpaceX's unmatched launch infrastructure and Starlink's global satellite broadband network with xAI's large language model capabilities and the Grok product suite. In practical terms, this positions the combined company at the intersection of three of the most capital-intensive and strategically significant industries of the decade: *space infrastructure, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence*. For 137 Ventures, which has been accumulating SpaceX exposure since well before any of these growth vectors were priced in, the merger represents an upward revision to an already exceptional return profile. ## Market implications and the trillion-dollar question The success of 137 Ventures highlights a shifting reality in Silicon Valley: **the real money is no longer necessarily made at the seed stage**. It is made by those who can navigate the complex secondary markets of mature, pre-IPO titans. While other firms are struggling to raise new vehicles amidst high interest rates and exit droughts, 137's ability to pull in $700 million suggests that limited partners still have a massive appetite for late-stage tech - provided the underlying assets are of the calibre of SpaceX. However, the $2 trillion valuation target raises legitimate questions about market saturation. Can a company spanning launch vehicles, satellite internet, and artificial intelligence - following its merger with xAI - *truly justify a valuation higher than the GDP of most G7 nations?* 137 Ventures seems to think so. By expanding their AUM to $15 billion, they are signalling that the era of the "megacorn" is just beginning. Whether this is a prudent expansion or a sign of late-cycle exuberance depends entirely on whether SpaceX can convert its orbital dominance into consistent, public-market-grade cash flow. For now, 137 Ventures is sitting on a mountain of capital - and waiting for the countdown to begin. ## What this means for founders and early employees The practical implication of 137 Ventures' continued expansion is straightforward for founders and employees at late-stage private companies: **structured secondary liquidity is becoming a mainstream financial instrument**, not an edge-case workaround. As the firm deploys its new $700 million across primary investments, direct secondaries, and structured liquidity programmes, it signals a broader maturation of this market. Founders no longer need to choose between holding out for a blockbuster IPO and selling their life's work at a discount to a strategic acquirer. *Secondary specialists like 137 Ventures have effectively created a third path* - one that lets founders and their teams access liquidity at scale while keeping the company independent, focused, and on its own timeline. Whether or not SpaceX ultimately crosses the $2 trillion mark on the public markets, 137 Ventures has already validated the thesis it was built on. ## Key takeaways: * 137 Ventures closed two new funds totalling over **$700 million** on April 30, 2026. * The firm's total assets under management (AUM) now **exceed $15 billion**. * 137 Ventures was founded in 2010 by **Justin Fishner-Wolfson** and **S. Alexander Jacobson** after the pair met at Founders Fund. * The firm has been a consistent backer of **SpaceX since 2010**, cutting approximately two dozen checks over 16 years. * 137 Ventures' SpaceX stake now **represents more than 1% of the company**, valued at over **$10 billion**. * According to Bloomberg, SpaceX is **targeting an IPO valuation above $2 trillion** - which would make it the largest public listing in history. * SpaceX **merged with Elon Musk's AI startup xAI** earlier in 2026, ahead of its planned public offering. * The new capital is earmarked for **growth-stage technology companies** across primary investments, direct secondaries, and structured liquidity solutions for founders and employees. ## Sources: * 137 Ventures press release (PRNewswire) - [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/137-ventures-raises-over-700-million-across-two-new-funds-surpasses-15-billion-in-aum-302758748.html](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/137-ventures-raises-over-700-million-across-two-new-funds-surpasses-15-billion-in-aum-302758748.html) * Tech Funding News - [https://techfundingnews.com/137-ventures-700m-funds-spacex-stake-ipo-15bn-aum/](https://techfundingnews.com/137-ventures-700m-funds-spacex-stake-ipo-15bn-aum/) * TechCrunch - [https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/spacex-backer-137-ventures-raises-700m-for-two-growth-stage-funds/](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/spacex-backer-137-ventures-raises-700m-for-two-growth-stage-funds/) * Bloomberg - SpaceX aims for over $2 trillion valuation in IPO - [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/spacex-is-said-to-target-more-than-2-trillion-valuation-in-ipo](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/spacex-is-said-to-target-more-than-2-trillion-valuation-in-ipo) * Yahoo Finance / Bloomberg - SpaceX investor 137 Ventures sees stake top 1% - [https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-investor-137-ventures-sees-170613082.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-investor-137-ventures-sees-170613082.html) ## Author - **Author**: Adam Edwards - **Job title**: Senior Corporate Strategy Analyst - **Author profile**: [https://psyll.com/adam](https://psyll.com/adam) - **About author**: Adam Edwards is a corporate strategist who escaped the world of big consulting firms to offer genuinely unfiltered business analysis. Specializing in cutting through corporate-speak and investor-relations spin, he examines the real strategic forces reshaping global supply chains and competitive dynamics between major corporations. With a sharp contrarian instinct and deep knowledge of executive incentive structures, he consistently exposes the gap between what management teams say publicly and what the underlying business data actually reveals. He writes for anyone who wants to know what is really happening in the corporate world. ## **License** This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You are free to copy, redistribute, and share this article in any medium or format, provided that: - Attribution is given to the original author. - A visible link to the original article is included: https://psyll.com/articles/business/137-ventures-raises-700m-eyes-spacex-ipo - Any modifications are clearly indicated. License: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)