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Three companies are 43% of every tech IPO since 1980

September 23, 2026

SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are marked at $2.0 trillion, $2.0 trillion, and $1.2 trillion. Together that is $5.2 trillion. Jay Ritter counts 3,365 U.S. tech IPOs from 1980 through 2025. Scale each year's first-day market value by July 2026 M2 over that year's average M2 and those rows sum to $12.016 trillion. The three marks are 43.3% of it. July 2026 M2 was $23,217.9 billion.

In the dollars of each year, the same openings total $4.066 trillion. The $5.2 trillion is already past that. In July 2026 consumer prices those openings are $6.365 trillion, and $5.2 trillion is 81.7% of that. Scaling by the money stock instead, to July 2026 M2, produces the $12.016 trillion, and the three marks are 43.3% of it.

Three company marks of $5.2 trillion (SpaceX $2.0 trillion, Anthropic $2.0 trillion, OpenAI $1.2 trillion), the nominal first-day total of 3,365 U.S. tech IPOs from 1980–2025 at $4.066 trillion, the same total in July 2026 consumer prices at $6.365 trillion, and that total scaled by July 2026 M2 at $12.016 trillion. Jay Ritter, Table 4e; FRED CPIAUCSL and M2SL.
Three company marks of $5.2 trillion (SpaceX $2.0 trillion, Anthropic $2.0 trillion, OpenAI $1.2 trillion), the nominal first-day total of 3,365 U.S. tech IPOs from 1980–2025 at $4.066 trillion, the same total in July 2026 consumer prices at $6.365 trillion, and that total scaled by July 2026 M2 at $12.016 trillion. Jay Ritter, Table 4e; FRED CPIAUCSL and M2SL.

Forty-six years of opening prices

Call the $12.016 trillion a first-day pile. Each tech IPO goes in at its market cap on the first close, and that is the end of it. The pile is not what those companies are worth now. A business that later became enormous is in there at its opening price. A business that later failed is in there too.

The scaling is July 2026 M2 divided by the average M2 in the year of the IPO. Older dollars get a larger multiplier because the money stock grew. After that, 1999 and 2000 are $4.818 trillion, 40.1% of the pile. The three marks are larger than those two years.

The yearly rows sum to $4.065 trillion, $200 million under Ritter's printed total of $4.066 trillion. We scale the rows.

The three marks

SpaceX closed on June 12, 2026 at $2.1 trillion. That is a first-day value of the kind in the pile, and the close is in 2026, so it is not already counted. One company on its first day is 17.5% of every tech IPO opening since 1980.

Anthropic's last completed round, late May, was $965 billion. The $2 trillion is a listing Reuters reported on September 11 that the company is seeking. OpenAI closed on March 31 at $852 billion. The $1.2 trillion is early talks Bloomberg reported on September 15. The three prices that have actually been paid sum to $3.917 trillion, 32.6% of the pile.

The figure for this season is still $5.2 trillion. Three companies at that mark are 43.3% of 3,365 tech IPO openings from 1980 through 2025, counted in July 2026 money.

Sources

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