In SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic IPOs, how a funding tap could open for Indian start-ups

Apart from validating Elon Musk’s confidence in his space-plus-AI company, SpaceX’s IPO also made profits for those PE firms and VCs who invested early enough.

Consider, for instance, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, whose $600 million investment in SpaceX was worth more than $50 billion at the company’s IPO price of $135, according to a Bloomberg report, which added that Andreessen Horowitz’s return from its investment in SpaceX would be the biggest in its history.

SpaceX’s IPO valued it at $1.8 trillion. In June, both Anthropic and OpenAI had confidentially filed for a listing. While the latter wants to be valued at $1 trillion in its IPO, Anthropic in May said it had raised $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion.

“Historically, successful exits have strengthened the ability of VC and PE firms to raise larger successor funds,” said Neha Singh, Tracxn’s Co-founder. “Given that India already features in the active portfolios of these 54 firms, a recovery in investment activity is plausible as fresh capital is raised and redeployed.”

At the same time, Singh cautioned that it is difficult to estimate how much capital may come to India as IPO proceeds are primarily distributed to Limited Partners rather than directly increasing General Partner deployment capacity.

The scope

However, there are “early signs of capital recycling”.

Take, for instance, Chicago-based VC firm Valor Equity Partners, whose 4% stake in SpaceX was worth around $70 billion at the IPO price. According to reports, Valor is looking to raise $2.5 billion by the end of 2026. But whether any of that money will reach Indian shores is up in the air given Valor’s focus on deep tech, defence, and late-stage AI infrastructure in the US, Singh of Tracxn said.

“As a result, any meaningful increase in India allocations is more likely to emerge over the medium term as successor funds are raised and deployed, rather than as an immediate post-IPO outcome,” she added.

According to private capital data provider PitchBook, liquidity conditions in Asia-Pacific are improving. This suggests “the region’s capital recycling cycle is beginning to repair after several years of constrained realisations,” it said in a report late last month.

Earlier this year in February, Peak XV had said it had raised $1.3 billion for its new India Seed, India Venture, and APAC funds.

To be sure, there are differences in how the SpaceX-Anthropic-OpenAI investors have poured money into US and Indian firms. In India, while 71% of the investments of these 54 firms have been at the seed or early stage, 93% of the money in companies such as SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI was at the late-stage.

This, Singh of Tracxn said, reflects a “deliberate strategy of concentrating capital behind a small number of category-defining companies rather than following their typical investment pattern” which sees them invest just 12% at the late stage across the US portfolio.

Whatever the money and stage, overseas funds will be welcomed not just by the start-ups but even Indian policymakers, with the Indian economy seemingly having sleepwalked into an exodus of foreign capital over the last couple of years as repatriation of past investments piled up rapidly, totalling $150 billion over 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26.

This is equal to 61% of gross Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country, resulting in net FDI over the aforementioned three years being a mere $18 billion.

In 2025-26, Indian start-ups raised $11.7 billion, down 18% from the previous year, according to Tracxn. As it is, private credit is becoming increasingly popular, with Moody’s Ratings estimating the size of the Indian market doubled in the last five years to $25 billion at the end of 2025.