What makes Pre-IPO Investment So Attractive?

Perhaps it lies in the fact that it is precisely at the point where a unicorn's value is gradually being recognized, but has not yet been fully priced by the public market. At this stage, the technology is being validated, the business path is becoming clearer, but the final discovery of value is still ongoing.

Over the past few years, this window has become increasingly important.

A batch of globally most-watched unicorns such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic have completed substantial financing and valuation leaps before IPO. As a result, how to allow investors to gain core equity exposure before the giants go public has become a key demand in the global capital market.

On August 31, 2026, MSX is also open for subscription for the Pre-IPO Phase III project.

Compared to when it first launched five months ago, this time's starting point is already different. The first two-phase projects have successively gone from subscription and holding to listing or buyback, and the first-round product loop has begun to be practically validated.

Building on this foundation, the third phase will further advance the asset boundary to two highly emblematic super unicorns of the era: Neuralink and Anduril.

I. From Listing to Premium Repurchase: MSX Pre-IPO Runs 「Full-Cycle Verification」

On March 2, 2026, MSX officially launched the Pre-IPO segment and introduced the first-phase project.

In the short months that followed, the demand for Pre-IPO around top unlisted tech companies quickly heated up, and various forms of Pre-IPO, Private Equity, and other unlisted asset-related products emerged in the market.

The logic behind it is not complicated.

A batch of the most promising tech companies, where most of the value creation takes place before IPO, naturally extends the demand forward for ordinary investors, shaping into whether they can participate before the company truly goes public?

However, for any Pre-IPO product, the more critical question than "which star companies can be purchased" is whether, after buying in, this path can truly be realized?

Over the past 5 months, MSX Macro Throughput has provided a strong set of answers through the actual operation of two Pre-IPO products.

Among them, the first phase of MSX Macro Throughput's Pre-IPO launch, Cerebras, has successfully completed a full transaction loop from private share ownership confirmation to public market listing, involving Cerebras and SpaceX:

·Cerebras (CBRS): Users participated in the subscription at a price of 100.35U. As Cerebras went public, MSX Macro Throughput simultaneously opened CBRS spot trading. Calculated based on the intraday high of the listing day, the early participants' phased comprehensive return rate once exceeded 300%;
·SpaceX (SPCX): The early subscription cost after MSX Macro Throughput's stock split adjustment was about 119U, while the post-listing price reached $166.85, with an intraday high of $176, achieving a phased increase of nearly 50%;

At the same time, in addition to the liquidity exit path of the listing, another more critical piece of the puzzle in the pre-listing stage—buyback exit—has also undergone multiple successful validations.

This includes the just-passed August 20th when MSX Macro Throughput officially opened the buyback of the Pre-IPO Phase II projects, Anthropic and Polymarket. Eligible holding users can choose to exit and settle in USDT according to the current buyback price based on their judgment, or they can continue to hold and wait for changes in the target's future valuation or future IPO:

·In particular, Polymarket's performance is most illustrative. The previous Pre-IPO subscription price was 152U/share, and the latest buyback price has risen to 202.67 U/share, a profit of about 33.3%, which means that early participants have the option to convert unrealized gains on the books into actual exit gains;
·Anthropic's Phase II subscription price was 855U/share, corresponding to a valuation of about $950 billion. Currently, its private market valuation has further increased, with rumors of a $2 trillion IPO valuation discussion. Investors can also choose to continue holding and enjoy the long-term growth dividend as they sprint to the public market;

Of course, a single project rising by 30%, 40%, or even more does not mean that all Pre-IPO assets will be able to replicate similar performance in the future.

What is truly worth paying attention to is that the two most core exit paths have begun to be confirmed successively, and the product chain of MSX Pre-IPO is gradually becoming complete: Target selection → Pre-IPO Subscription → Holding → Listing / Buyback → Liquidity and Exit.

This also set the upcoming Phase 3 on a completely different starting line from the Phase 1 launch five months ago.

And this time, MSX set its sights on Neuralink and Anduril.

II. Neuralink and Anduril: One Connecting the Human Brain and the Other Entering the Battlefield

As the Phase 3 Pre-IPO targets, MSX Ventures selected two companies: Neuralink and Anduril.

While the industries of the two companies seem worlds apart, they both point towards a clearer evolution of AI in the next stage, which is AI transitioning from the digital world into the physical world.

1. Neuralink: If the Next Generation Entry Point of AI Is the Human Brain

Amid all the narratives of cutting-edge technology, Neuralink may have the highest cognitive threshold and the most difficult-to-assess long-term ceiling of any company.

Founded by Elon Musk in 2016 as a brain-machine interface company, if Neuralink is only understood as a medical device company that "implants chips in the human brain," it undoubtedly underestimates what it truly aims to do.

From implantable devices, flexible electrodes, neural signal decoding, wireless communication, to surgical robots responsible for precise implants, Neuralink has been building a complete brain-machine interface system from the start.

And in the past two years, its most significant change has been to bring the brain-machine interface from the lab into the human body.

In 2024, Neuralink completed its first human implant; since then, clinical projects have continued to expand. By early 2026, more than 20 participants worldwide have received implants. For Neuralink, this means it has taken a significant step from 0 to 1.

The question has now become, if it can really be achieved, how far can it ultimately go?

Today, even in our most ordinary interaction with AI, we still need to go through "brain → hand → keyboard → AI → screen → eyes."

And the most radical endgame of Neuralink is to compress this chain into "brain ⇄ AI." By directly reading neural signals, humans can control computers, phones, robotic arms, and potentially more machines with "thoughts."

Currently, healthcare remains the most practical and important application scenario.

If the brain-machine interface can overcome long-term safety, bandwidth, implant efficiency, and scalability limitations in the future, the market corresponding to Neuralink may already be unimaginable using the Total Addressable Market (TAM) of any medical device industry today.

What it may ultimately compete for is the Human × AI Interface, which is the next-generation interface between humans and AI.

This is also why its valuation is rapidly changing—during the 2025 Series E financing, the company was valued at around $9.65 billion; by entering 2026, the valuation in private market transactions and buyer offers has risen to the range of several hundred billion dollars.

Capital is pricing in a future that has not yet fully occurred.

To some extent, today's Neuralink is reminiscent of the earlier days of SpaceX, which was similarly difficult to explain using traditional aerospace company valuation models.

What truly drives its increasing value is not the accuracy of every timeline, but Musk repeatedly proving that some engineering problems that were once considered almost impossible to commercialize can indeed be turned into products and then into industries.

Neuralink may be Musk's most challenging bet to date.

It is also for this reason that the imaginative space corresponding to Neuralink is equally vast—it has proven some things, but the part that truly determines the valuation cap has not yet been fully proven.

2. Anduril: AI is reshaping the "execution layer" of national defense

If Neuralink is about allowing AI into the human brain, then what Anduril is doing is truly bringing AI onto the real battlefield.

When founded in 2017, Anduril was best known for its products in border surveillance and anti-drone systems.

Less than a decade later, the company has expanded its product line to unmanned combat aircraft, cruise missiles, underwater drone systems, anti-drone defense, solid rocket engines, and the AI command and control platform Lattice, which serves as the central nervous system of the entire system.

So, today, viewing Anduril as merely a "drone company" is no longer accurate. What it truly challenges is the decades-long traditional US military-industrial complex.

The traditional defense industry often entails lengthy R&D cycles, high costs, and a relatively fragmented procurement and development system between software and hardware. Anduril, on the other hand, brings a logic closer to Silicon Valley: one that is software-first, AI-driven, autonomous, rapidly iterative, and focused on scale manufacturing;

If Palantir has already proven that AI can penetrate the decision-making layer of the defense system, helping process data, form judgments, and aid in decision-making, then Anduril is like taking a step further: entering the execution layer of defense, truly connecting sensors, drones, fighter jets, and weapon systems, and participating in mission execution.

This is also why the capital market is redefining Anduril.

By 2025, the company's revenue had reached about $2.2 billion; entering 2026, the US Army also established a $20 billion ten-year enterprise procurement framework with it, shifting Anduril from a Defense Tech Startup constantly vying for single military contracts to a more long-term, scaled-up US defense procurement system.

Simultaneously, the company is advancing its Arsenal manufacturing system, further bridging the most challenging capability gap for defense tech startups—large-scale production.

In other words, what Anduril aims to do is to combine "AI + Autonomy + Software + Hardware + Manufacturing" into a new defense industrial platform.

The valuation also reflects this identity shift:

· In 2022, Anduril was valued at around $8.5 billion;
· In 2024, around $14 billion;
· In 2025, around $30.5 billion;
· In May 2026, with the Series H funding round, the valuation had risen to $61 billion;
· By August, the implied valuation corresponding to the Forge private market reference price surpassed $110 billion;

This is not exactly cheap.

However, for Pre-IPO investors, Palantir has already proven that the capital market is willing to pay a valuation premium far above traditional defense contractors for the combination of "AI + Defense + Platform Capabilities."

What Anduril is vying for is the next round of a similar identity reassessment.

III. Pre-IPO, Focusing on Early Opportunities Not Fully Priced by the Market

Overall, Neuralink and Anduril operate in completely different industries. However, when looked at together, a very similar theme emerges, which is that the market is trading them based on what they might become in the future.

Neuralink is evolving from a "Brain-Machine Interface Medical Company" to a potential Human × AI Interface; Anduril is evolving from a "Defense Technology Startup" to a potential AI + Defense Platform.

This is also the most noteworthy common thread when Neuralink and Anduril were both included in MSX Pre-IPO's third phase:

The next round of AI value creation may no longer occur solely within models and screens.

From the first phase to the third phase, the asset boundaries covered by MSX Pre-IPO have been continuously expanding. From Cerebras, SpaceX, to Anthropic, Polymarket, and now Neuralink and Anduril, the covered directions have evolved from AI computing power and commercial spaceflight to generative AI, prediction markets, brain-machine interfaces, and AI defense.

But more important than industry labels is a gradually clearer logic of asset selection behind it all, which is that MSX MacTong Pre-IPO will continue to seek out top-tier unlisted companies that have undergone some level of technological or business validation but are still not fully priced by the public markets.

Ultimately, the value of Pre-IPO has never been just about "getting in earlier than an IPO."

Because "early" itself does not mean cheap, nor does it imply returns.

What truly matters is when a company is rapidly changing in terms of its technological capabilities, business scale, and market identity, determining whether it is crossing a point significant enough to reshape the future valuation system.

After all, a change in company identity often marks the beginning of a valuation system shift. Companies like SpaceX are no longer just rocket companies, and Palantir is no longer solely viewed as a government software contractor.

The market is starting to redefine what a company truly "is," which often coincides with the most critical reassessment of value.

Of course, this also implies higher uncertainty.

Neuralink still needs to face long-term tests in clinical, safety, regulatory, and commercialization cycles; Anduril must continue to prove that large-scale orders and procurement frameworks can ultimately translate into sustainable revenue and profit growth, while digesting a significantly increased private market valuation.

This is also an aspect that all Pre-IPO investments cannot ignore.

Final Thoughts

Good Pre-IPO assets rarely emerge after all the answers have been revealed.

Because when the technology is fully mature, the business model is thoroughly validated, and the growth path becomes clear, the public market has often already completed the most critical round of pricing.

What is truly worth observing are often those companies that are reshaping their own identities:

· SpaceX has evolved from a rocket company to a platform-level asset spanning commercial spaceflight, satellite communications, and next-generation infrastructure;
· Palantir has been reinterpreted from a controversial government software contractor to a data and decision platform for the AI era;

And today, Neuralink is betting on the next way humans will connect with AI, while Anduril is betting on the next defense industrial complex of the AI era.

One focusing on the human brain, the other entering the battlefield.

They are in completely different industries but find themselves at similar inflection points of value reassessment— the market is curious about what these companies will ultimately become.

For MSX Pre-IPO, the true continuity of the third phase is also this longer-term asset discovery logic:

Discovering those platform-level assets that are reshaping themselves and potentially redefining an industry before the next generation of tech companies is fully recognized by the public market.

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