E218: Figma surges 250% on NYSE debut to $56b; Anthropic triples valuation to $170b in new round; Ramp jumps 40% to $22.5b in 45 days; iCapital raises $820m to $7.5b valuation; BitGo files IPO at $3.43b secondary valuation; Substack boosts 70% to $1.1b on

0:00Aaron Dillon here, Managing Director of AG Dillon & Co. AG Dillon is closing six pre-IPo stock funds in September of 2025. and real xai grok lambda labs together ai and a space economy company use these single stock funds to build bespoke pre-ipo stock portfolios you select the pre-ipo stock company exposures and weight allocations to each pre-ipo stock to express your unique investment thesis available for purchase to charles schwab fidelity and directly at ag dylan funds 2 500 minimum investment Financial advisors only. Email Aaron.Dillon at agdillon.com to invest. Again, that's A-A-R-O-N.D-I-L-L-O-N at agdillon.com to invest.

0:47All right. Now the pre-IPO stock market update for August 1st, 2025. Figma, the design software SaaS company, made a remarkable debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, August 1st, with its stock soaring so rapidly that trading was halted briefly due to volatility. Priced at$33 per share during its IPO on Wednesday, above the expected range of$30 to$32 per share, the company achieved a fully diluted market cap of$19.3 billion. But within a minute of trading, its stock market had surged to$45 billion, fluctuating between$101 and a high of$124 before settling at$115.50 per share. That's the close price, yielding a$56 billion market cap.

1:35This$1.2 billion IPO was the largest venture-backed tech IPO buy amount raised since 2021. Founded in 2012 by CEO Dylan Field. Figma raised$330 million in venture capital previously, and it's failed$20 billion acquisition by Adobe in 2023 is now overshadowed by this current success. With major investors like Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia Capital seeing significant gains from the pre-IPO stakes. So congrats to the Figma team. Anthropic, an AI large language model company, is reportedly close to securing a funding round of$3 billion to$5 billion, which would value the company at$170 billion, nearly tripling its previous$61.5 billion valuation, following a$3.5 billion round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in March of 2025.

2:29That's not that long ago. Iconic Capital is leading the potential deal alongside talks with sovereign wealth funds like Qatar Investment Authority and Singapore's GIC, reflecting the company's shift to Middle Eastern capital to meet massive financial demands of AI development. The round is rumored to include past investors such as Bessemer, Cisco, D1 Capital, Fidelity, General Catalyst, Jane Street, and Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures as well, signaling strong belief in Anthropics' future revenue prospects. Ramp, an AI-driven expense management company, announced a$500 million Series E2 funding on Wednesday, led by Iconic with participation from Founders Fund and D1 Capital Partners, boosting its valuation to$22.5 billion, up from$16 billion just 45 days earlier after a$200 million raise in June, a significant jump from its$13 billion valuation in March and$5.8 billion in late 2023.

3:28The New York City-based company, which now employs 1 ,200 people and serves over 40 ,000 customers, that's up from 15 ,000 in 2023, including several Fortune 100 companies, has raised a total of$1.9 billion, achieving cash flow positivity earlier this year, with annualized revenue reaching$700 million in March. CEO Dylan Gleiman envisions an autonomous finance future by 2028, supported by the launch of its first AI agent in July, which has been adopted by thousands of its customers, and plans for more agents to automate tasks like expense compliance and procurement, leveraging AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic, positioning ramp to compete with rivals like Brex, SAP, and American Express, despite a cautious market where fintech investment dropped 46 % globally in late 2023.

4:16I'm sure they're going to do something with stable coins and with the Genius Act is passing as well. iCapital, a fintech focused on alternative investments, has raised over$820 million in its latest funding round, co-led by T. Rowe Price and Sergio Cap Partners, boosting its valuation over$7.5 billion. This follows a strategic investment of more than$700 million into its platform and 23 acquisitions, including recent deals with Mirador, Alt Exchange, and Parallel Markets, the company which now employs 1 ,875 people across 16 global offices and serves over 3 ,000 wealth management firms, 750 product providers, and 114 ,000 active financial professionals, manages a staggering$945 billion in assets globally, including $275 billion in alternative platform assets,$203 billion in structured investments and annuities, and$485 billion in client assets reported on, positioned to capitalize on the projected$20 trillion private market's growth by 2030.

5:23That's per BlackRock's 2025 outlook. look. BitGo, a crypto custody company, announced that it has confidentially filed for an IPO, joining a wave of digital assets focused on companies rushing to capitalize on the Trump administrative supportive stance for crypto industry. The company, which raised$43 million at a$2.2 billion valuation in February 2022, provides secure storage and protection for digital assets aligning with recent IPO filings by crypto exchanges Gemini and Peter Thiel's back bullish, reflecting growing investor enthusiasm for the sector. BitGo has a$4.43 billion secondary market valuation.

6:05Substack, a newsletter publishing platform, announced a$100 million Series C funding round led by Bond and Charen Group with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Clutch Sports Group CEO Rich Paul, and Skims co-founder Jens Greedy, boosting its valuation to$1.1 billion, a 70 % increase from its$650 million valuation in 2021. The company, which now supports over 5 million paid subscribers, up from 2 million in 2023, has more than 50 creators earning millions annually and plans to use the funds to enhance its app, develop new creator tools, expand into new markets, and venture into advertising.

6:44Vons Mood Rogani is going to join the board to help guide the growth strategy. Shein, an online fast fashion retailer, reported a net income exceeding$400 million and revenue nearing$10 billion in the first quarter of 2025, boosting its profit margin to approximately 5%. However, the company dismissed the news that it was inaccurate without further details. So take this kind of for what it is. This financial uptick driven by customers stockpiling ahead of U.S. tariffs followed by President Trump's Liberation Day announcement contrasts with a reported 40 % drop in net profit to a billion dollars and 38 billion in sales in 2024 amid scrutiny of its supply chain and labor practices that derailed a planned U.S.

7:34IPO and shifted focus to a confidential Hong Kong listing filing. Valued at$66 billion in 2023 funding round, Xi 'an now faces pressure to have that valuation. So it's down by about$33 billion, complicated by the U.S. removal of the de minimis rule, exempting low-value goods from taxes, which saw a billion parcels shipped in 2023, effective in May of 2025 for China and Hong Kong and set to expand to all countries by the end of August 2025, threatening its model despite diversification efforts to Vietnam. Klarna, the consumer credit and payments company, is considering reviving its New York IPO as early as September, October of 2025, targeting a raise of at least a billion at a valuation exceeding$15 billion.

8:22Following a surge in fintech stocks and growth in U.S. listings like Chimes, 1 billion IPO in June, which got a current market cap of 12.5 billion, which rose 25 % post-debut and affirms 50 % rebound since April. The company, which filed with the SEC in March but paused due to market turmoil from President Trump's April tariff announcement, has seen its UK division granted an electronic money institution license, planning cash back for its 11 million UK customers later this year. Their global buy-now-pay-later delinquency rates dropped to 88 basis points in Q2 2025, That's a 15 basis point improvement year over year and recovering from a$6.7 billion valuation in 2022 after a peak of$46 billion.

9:11Klarna aims to reposition itself beyond its buy now, pay later routes into a digital bank. Klarna has$11.8 billion secondary market valuation. It's up 76.7 percent versus July 2022 round. open ai and ai large language model business has nearly doubled its revenue to an annualized 12 billion in the first seven months of 2025 generating a billion monthly compared to 500 million at the start at the year start that's a huge revenue increase the company has 700 million weekly active users across its products up from 500 million in late march positioning it to potentially exceed its$12.7 billion revenue projections for 2025, a sharp rise from$4 billion in 2024.

9:56This growth, however, has increased its cash burn forecast to$8 billion for 2025, up a billion from earlier estimates, with planned spending on server rentals nearing$14 billion. While the company secures$7.5 billion of a projected$40 billion funding round, led by Sequoia, Tiger, and others at a$300 billion post-money valuation, five months ahead of SoftBank's schedule with an additional$22.5 billion commitment contingent on corporate restructuring by early 2026 to become a for-profit company. OpenAI and SoftBank are each investing$18 billion in a joint data center venture in states like Ohio and Nevada, enhancing its AI model expansion while offering 10 % to 20 % discounts on ChatGPT for enterprises.

10:43and new features like spreadsheet and presentation tools to compete with Microsoft and Google. OpenAI has a$326 billion secondary market valuation. That's up 8.7 % versus the February 2025 convertible node. Grok, an AI semiconductor company, is surging ahead, having raised over a billion dollars from prestigious investors like BlackRock and Tiger Global Management and achieving$90 million in revenue last year, with projections soaring to$470 million in 2025 from major partnerships, including a promising$1.5 billion deal with Saudi Arabia's Aramco, an additional$320 million expected over the next two years from other partners.

11:25Despite adjusting its 2025 revenue forecast from$2 billion to over$500 million due to data center capacity challenges, the company remains optimistic. It's forecasting a robust$1.2 billion in revenue in 2026. That's a 140 % year-over-year increase and a$1.9 billion revenue number in 2027. That's a 58 % year-over-year increase. So those are all going to be fueled by direct hardware sales and a viral cloud service demo, which has showcased its chip's blazing speed with Meta's Lama model. So cloud's going to be a big business for Glock going forward. We believe Glock's role position to win market share with its cloud services is expected to turn profitable in 2026 with$200 million in revenue against$170 million in expenses.

12:13The company is currently out raising a$600 million round at a$6 billion valuation. That's doubling from its$2.8 billion valuation a year ago. The round is oversubscribed. That's what we're hearing. And a$6 billion valuation at a$500 million in revenue is a 12x revenue multiple. lovable a no-code ai app developer announced that it has surpassed 100 million in annual recurring revenue that's just eight months after hitting a million in arr that's pretty impressive growth making it the fastest growing startup globally the company has over 10 million projects built on its platform and 100 100 000 created daily the company unveiled a major product update making lovable engine the default mode for all new users enhancing its capabilities with a 91 % reduction in error and errors for complex multi-step tasks enabling real-world integration integrations like web browsing image generation and multi-file code updates lovable as has a credits fee model so cost range from half a credit to 1.7 credits per prompt depending on complexity So like, for example, half a credit to change a button style or 1.7 credits to create a landing page with images.

13:36The lovable agent upgrade, which interprets users' requests, explores code bases and automates development processes, positions lovable to handle ambitious software projects more efficiently. XAI, the AI large language model company, has built the Colossus Data Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Colossus represents a massive facility housing specialized computer chips called graphic processing units, GPUs, which act like high speed brains for artificial intelligence tasks, enabling rapid calculations that power advanced AI models. NVIDIA makes GPUs, for example. Currently, as of early August 2025, XAI has Colossus 1 fully operational with 230 ,000 GPUs, delivering substantial computing power for training their Grok AI system.

14:30The company is rapidly expanding into Colossus 2, which is a larger setup in Memphis that will incorporate an initial batch of 550 ,000 advanced NVIDIA GB200 and GB300 GPUs starting to come online imminently, with plans to scale to a million GPUs in total in this phase. This positions XAI far ahead of competitors as Colossus 2 is projected to achieve around 20 ,000 exaflops. That's a measure of computational speed equivalent to performing quintrillions of operations per second, dwarfing the next largest cluster from companies like Meta and Microsoft OpenAI, which top out at around 400 exaflops each.

15:16XAI's competitive edge lies in unprecedented development speed. For instance, its initial Colossus was assembled in just 19 days. It's a feat that NVIDIA's CEO described as superhuman. That's his quote, his word, and subsequent expansions like doubling capacity and having taken mere months compared to years typically required by others in the industry. Looking ahead, XAI's end goal is to amass the equivalent of 50 million H100 GPUs in computing power. That's far more efficient and powerful than current standards. By mid-2030s to create the world's most capable AI systems for solving complex problems.

15:57At current GPU pricing levels, that's like over a trillion dollars of capital expenditure. I do expect the price of GPUs to come down over time. They improve year over year. So that's probably going to be significantly less capital, but still a lot of money. So this ambitious target is supported by ongoing funding efforts, fundraising efforts, excuse me, including a potential$12 million round to fuel chip acquisitions and infrastructure with its venture capital partner, Valor Equity Partners. The timeline to reach this scale involves quarterly additions of around 100 ,000 GPUs, building on XAI's proven ability to stand up and operationalize these facilities at a pace that outstrips rivals, potentially giving them multi-year lead in AI development and a strong moat against competition in the race for superior intelligence capabilities.

16:47Okay, that's it for me this week. Thanks and see you all next week.

16:56Thank you.