People who can't buy Anthropic have driven its shadow stocks up by 16 times.

It’s not that the shadow is valuable; it’s that the feeling of being locked out is too expensive.

Author: David, Deep Tide TechFlow

Last Thursday, the NYSE added a new stock, ticker VCX.

It’s actually a fund. The fund holds shares in companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. Among them, Anthropic accounts for 21%, OpenAI for 10%.

These companies have one thing in common: none are publicly listed, so ordinary people can’t buy their stocks.

VCX is currently one of the few instruments allowing regular investors to indirectly hold shares of Anthropic.

Its net asset value is $19 per share. On the first day of trading, it opened at $42, surged to $125 during the day, and closed at $76. By the fourth trading day, the intraday high reached $315, triggering two circuit breakers.

In four days, from $19 to $315.

Investors are essentially paying 16 times the actual asset value to buy this fund. Not because the fund manager is particularly skilled, but because it contains Anthropic.

A month ago, Anthropic raised $30 billion at a valuation of $380 billion, making it the second-largest funding round globally this year. Annual revenue is $14 billion. But it’s not listed, has no stock ticker, and you can’t find it in any brokerage search.

If you can’t buy the actual company, you go for the shadow. VCX is currently the shadow of Anthropic, or the shadow of AI FOMO.

Why is it so expensive?

VCX isn’t a traditional fund.

In a typical fund, if you think it’s too expensive, you can wait for it to fall because the fund manager can issue more shares, making supply elastic. VCX is a closed-end fund; its shares are locked in at listing and won’t increase.

More importantly, most shares can’t be sold at all. Investors who bought before February 20 are locked in for six months, until September, before they can trade. VCX has over 100,000 investors, but only a small portion of the shares are actually tradable now.

What does this mean? Many want to buy, but only a few can. Even small buy orders can push the price out of shape.

So that 16x premium actually reflects “how many people want to get close to Anthropic, and how narrow the door is.” But this hunger isn’t something VCX created itself.

Image: Top 10 holdings of Fundrise’s VCX fund

Over the past decade, a structural change has occurred in the tech industry: the best companies are going public later and sometimes not at all.

In 2012, Facebook went public with a valuation of $104 billion, already astronomical at the time. Today, Anthropic’s private valuation is more than three times Facebook’s IPO valuation, yet it has no clear plans to go public;

OpenAI is valued at $500 billion but remains private. SpaceX has been rumored to IPO for over a year, but no definite date has been set.

Ten years ago, a company of this size would have already rung the bell on NYSE. Now, they don’t need to. The private market can provide almost unlimited funding, without quarterly report pressures or dealing with retail investors and short-sellers.

For founders, this is a rational choice. For ordinary investors, it means the fastest-growing companies in history are now only visible through glass.

VCX was originally scheduled to go public on March 9, but the Iran war delayed it by ten days. During those ten days, nothing changed—Anthropic’s price stayed the same, and the fund’s holdings remained untouched. But the delay built up ten more days of anticipation.

When it finally listed, all the pent-up demand from ten days of silence flooded into a very narrow channel.

Not all shadows are worth money

If you want to access stocks of private companies, there are other ways besides VCX.

But before discussing those, a more fundamental question: how does a publicly traded fund get shares of a private company like Anthropic when it’s not listed?

The answer is through the back door.

Large private companies raise funding rounds every few months, from Series A to G, bringing new investors in each time. Anthropic just closed a $30 billion Series G last month, with investors including GIC, Sequoia, Goldman Sachs, and others. These rounds are usually only open to institutional investors, with minimum investments often in the millions.

But there’s a second way.

Just because a company isn’t listed doesn’t mean its shares can’t be traded privately. Early employees and angel investors hold shares, and some want to cash out early. This creates a secondary market for private companies—unofficial, opaque, but real transactions happen.

Fundrise has been buying through both channels since 2022, when private tech valuations had just experienced a sharp decline, making prices cheaper. Over four years, they built a portfolio including Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. Then they packaged it into VCX, listed on NYSE, and now ordinary people can buy it like stocks.

In the same month, at least three other similar funds are trading on NYSE, all based on the same concept:

Buying through the back door, selling through the front.

Robinhood launched a fund called RVI, listed on March 6, with an issue price of $25. Its holdings include Databricks, Revolut, Ramp—all good private companies. On the first day, it fell 11%, closing at $21.

Destiny Tech100, ticker DXYZ, will go public in 2024, a pioneer in this space. It heavily invests in SpaceX, with a 16% stake. In February, it added a small exposure to Anthropic indirectly. Now, its share price hovers around $24.

Another is XOVR, the first ETF approved to hold private company shares directly, with SpaceX accounting for about 21%.

Four funds, similar structures, similar concepts, all traded on the same exchange. But their fates are very different.

VCX surged 1500% in four days. RVI broke on its first day. DXYZ was lukewarm.

VCX holds 21% of Anthropic and 10% of OpenAI. RVI’s holdings include neither Anthropic nor OpenAI. DXYZ’s exposure to Anthropic was added recently and is very small.

This shows that, at least for now, the market isn’t really fighting for “private company shares.” It’s fighting for Anthropic.

Whoever is closer to it is worth more.

Robinhood’s RVI lost because of this. Databricks and Revolut are good companies, but clearly, they aren’t the names people are willing to pay 16 times premium for right now.

Shadows also have a shelf life

What are people betting on when they buy VCX at $312?

They’re betting that before the door opens, someone will be willing to pay even more to get Anthropic.

But that door won’t stay closed forever.

VCX has over 100,000 investors, most of whom are locked in for six months. The lock-up ends on September 19. When that happens, a large volume of shares will flood the market, shifting supply from extremely scarce to abundant overnight.

The reason VCX can command a 16x premium is partly because it contains Anthropic, and perhaps partly because there are so few shares available. Once the lock-up period ends, that second condition disappears.

There’s also a bigger variable.

Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are all rumored to IPO between late 2026 and 2027. Anthropic just raised $30 billion last month, with a valuation of $380 billion, and has hired Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini to prepare for an IPO. SpaceX’s CFO has been discussing IPO plans with investors since late last year, aiming for mid-2024.

Once the actual companies go public, shadows will lose their value.

If you can directly search for Anthropic’s stock ticker on your broker, why pay 16 times premium to buy a fund that holds it indirectly?

For example, DXYZ surged when it first listed in 2024, but after SpaceX delayed its IPO, the hype faded, and the stock price halved from its peak.

So, VCX investors are experiencing a classic countdown.

They paid 16 times the price for not the shares of Anthropic itself, but a ticket with an expiration date. When the door opens depends on when Anthropic decides to IPO.

Until then, the premium is maintained by scarcity; afterward, it will evaporate.

But shadow stocks aren’t accidental.

Every wave of technological innovation creates the same anxiety: you can’t buy the most important companies. In the 2000s, it was Google before going public, with Goldman Sachs employees desperately fighting for allocations. In 2020, it was SpaceX, with Silicon Valley secondary market middlemen suddenly becoming the hottest contacts.

Now, it’s AI.

And this time, the anxiety runs even deeper. Anthropic and OpenAI may not be profitable now, but they are rewriting the rules. Because of AI, SaaS stocks collapsed, safe stocks plummeted, and IBM lost $31 billion in a single day.

Investors see not just “these companies are profitable,” but “if I don’t side with them, I might end up trampled by them.”

VCX’s 16x premium isn’t just about a fund; it’s about this anxiety itself.

The ticket will expire, the premium will fade. But as long as AI continues to accelerate and the most valuable companies stay behind closed doors, someone will be willing to pay irrational prices for shadows.

It’s not because the shadows are worth that money; it’s because being locked out feels too expensive.