ARK's SpaceX IPO Investment Guide: $1.75 Trillion Valuation, 95x Price-to-Sales Ratio, Where Did the Money Go?

Author: ARK Invest

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Guide: SpaceX submitted a confidential registration statement to the SEC on April 1, aiming for a valuation of $1.75 trillion, with a maximum fundraising of $75 billion, and is expected to list on NASDAQ by June 2026. This will be the largest IPO in capital markets history.

As one of SpaceX’s largest venture holdings, ARK Invest released this comprehensive investment guide, addressing investor concerns from valuation logic and business breakdowns to fund holding strategies.

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On April 1, 2026, SpaceX filed a draft confidential registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), marking its first step toward going public. This will be the largest initial public offering (IPO) in capital markets history. The company’s target valuation is $1.75 trillion, with a potential raise of up to $75 billion, and it could list on NASDAQ as early as June 2026.

For investors in ARK Venture Fund, this news is not surprising. SpaceX has long been the largest holding in the fund, accounting for 17.02% of the fund’s net assets as of March 31, 2026. ARK began building and refining its investment thesis when SpaceX was an early venture capital target, and now the questions pouring into ARK’s inbox are well-prepared for.

This guide answers the most important of those questions.

What exactly did SpaceX submit? What happens next?

SpaceX’s confidential submission allows the company to share financial data with the SEC for review before disclosing it to the public. According to SEC regulations, the public version of the S-1 prospectus must be released at least 15 days before the company begins promoting its stock to investors. This prospectus will be the first window for the outside world to see SpaceX’s complete financial picture, including revenue data, profit margin structure, accounting treatment of the February 2026 xAI merger, defense contract disclosures, and governance framework that will determine how much control Elon Musk retains after going public.

This IPO, internally codenamed “Project Apex,” is managed by an underwriter syndicate of at least 21 banks. Listing on NASDAQ in June 2026 will make SpaceX the first shot in Bloomberg’s “Super IPO Triple Play”—ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic—and will break the 2019 Saudi Aramco IPO record of $29 billion by nearly three times.

Is a $1.75 trillion valuation justified?

ARK’s research aims to answer this question. The most rigorous answer is: this valuation reflects a set of specific assumptions about the future, not the current reality.

Based on a $1.75 trillion valuation and an estimated 2025 revenue of approximately $18.5 billion, SpaceX’s price-to-sales ratio at IPO would be about 95x. No comparable company of this scale has traded at such a multiple in the public markets. This valuation reflects investor confidence in SpaceX’s future form; understanding it requires breaking down each business segment.

Starlink is the financial engine. As of early 2026, SpaceX’s satellite internet service has surpassed 10 million active users worldwide, with revenue expected to exceed $20 billion in 2026. ARK’s research has long identified Starlink as the fastest-growing telecom network globally in terms of users and revenue, and this judgment has proven to be even conservative. According to ARK, the satellite connectivity market alone could reach nearly $160 billion in annual revenue at scale, with Starlink occupying an outsized share structurally.

Launch services remain the foundation. In 2025, SpaceX completed 165 orbital launches, deploying about 85% of the world’s spacecraft. ARK’s research shows that since 2008, the company has reduced launch costs by approximately 95%—from about $15,600 per kilogram to less than $1,000 per kilogram with Falcon 9. ARK’s research indicates that the fully reusable Starship aims to reduce costs to below $100 per kilogram, representing another order-of-magnitude decrease and opening up markets that currently do not exist.

xAI merger and orbital computing represent the most forward-looking dimensions of valuation. The February 2026 merger will vertically integrate launch, communications, and AI model infrastructure under one entity. ARK’s research suggests that with launch costs below $100 per kilogram, the cost of computing power in orbital data centers could be about 25% lower than ground-based solutions, without facing grid latency, approval friction, or power scarcity issues. Musk has stated the company’s goal is to launch 100 gigawatts of AI compute annually. While still early, this thesis gives the combined entity a strategic premium that cannot be fully captured by any segmented model.

ARK’s research believes that the $1.75 trillion IPO target is built on credible growth trajectories for each core business segment of SpaceX, supported by structural advantages that are expected to be durable. User growth for Starlink continues to exceed expectations. The decline in launch costs follows a predictable path based on Wright’s Law. The xAI merger adds a strategic dimension to the platform, with no comparable public company attempting to replicate it. The public S-1 will provide financial transparency, allowing investors to rigorously test these assumptions, and ARK believes the fundamentals can withstand such scrutiny.

Can Elon Musk’s goals be achieved?

ARK’s investment framework is based on a simple premise: bold technological visions, supported by proven cost decline curves and accelerating adoption, are worth serious consideration—even if market consensus remains skeptical.

By this standard, Musk’s track record is impressive. His goal of fully reusable rockets was once considered unrealistic by the traditional aerospace industry, but SpaceX achieved it. His vision of building global satellite internet for billions lacking connectivity was deemed financially infeasible, but Starlink proved otherwise. The company has deployed over 10,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit, serving more than 10 million users, and achieved cash flow breakeven in 2023.

More ambitious goals—such as lunar factories and a network of 1 million orbital data centers—are still in the conceptual stage. But ARK’s research does not require every goal to be realized to support its investment thesis. The existing business segments, developing along current trajectories, are sufficient to underpin an attractive investment case. The embedded optionality in larger ambitions represents upside potential not yet reflected in ARK’s current valuation model—this part of the model is being updated.

In ARK’s view, Musk’s goals are aggressive by any historical standard, and SpaceX has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to compress skeptics’ expected timelines. This is not a guarantee, but ARK believes that this track record itself is a meaningful data point.

Why would investors want exposure to SpaceX before IPO?

This may be the most important question for investors in ARK Venture Fund, and the answer has multiple layers.

The window for value creation has shifted forward. The median age of private companies going public in the U.S. reached 12 years in 2025, up from just 5 years in 1999. Today’s most-watched companies generate enormous value while still private. By the time they go public, many investors may have already missed the most significant appreciation phase.

IPO price does not equal most investors’ entry price. When a company of SpaceX’s size goes public, allocations are prioritized for institutional investors. Retail investors who cannot participate directly in IPO allocations will buy on the open market, at prices determined by supply and demand on the first day—often well above the IPO price. Historical experience shows that high-valuation, high-profile IPOs tend to experience significant volatility post-listing before settling into long-term levels.

Investors in ARK Venture Fund gain VC-level access. The fund holds SpaceX through direct ownership—without intermediaries, special purpose vehicles (SPVs), or layered structured products with added fees and valuation premiums. From a valuation of $350 billion (2024), $800 billion (2025), to the post-merger $1.25 trillion, and now the $1.75 trillion IPO target, ARK Venture Fund’s exposure is continuous. This value creation trajectory occurs entirely in the primary market, which is precisely the design intent of ARK Venture Fund.

What happens to ARK Venture Fund’s holdings after SpaceX goes public?

ARK anticipated this scenario and its impact on investors when designing the fund.

ARK Venture Fund is an evergreen crossover fund, designed to hold positions throughout the full lifecycle—from early-stage and late-stage private to IPO and beyond. SpaceX’s IPO is not a “management” issue for the fund; the structure itself is built for this purpose.

After SpaceX completes its IPO, the fund’s holdings may be subject to standard lock-up periods, during which ARK’s shares cannot be sold. During this lock-up, new capital injected into ARK Venture Fund will be deployed into other private companies, accelerating the rebalancing toward the fund’s target of approximately 80% private exposure.

Once the lock-up ends, the fund will have full flexibility to manage its SpaceX position—reducing holdings when appropriate and reallocating funds into ARK’s five core technology platforms (AI, robotics, energy storage, multi-omics, and blockchain) in next-generation private innovations.

Any performance of ARK Venture Fund holdings—public or private—is directly reflected in the fund’s net asset value (NAV). SpaceX’s valuation growth during its private phase has been reflected in the NAV in real time. Due to the cross-stage nature of ARK Venture Fund, this relationship will not change at IPO. If SpaceX lists at a higher valuation, investors in ARK Venture Fund will benefit accordingly; if lower, they will bear the impact. For long-term investors, IPO is an important liquidity event in the company’s lifecycle, and early positioning before revaluation in the public market is a key advantage of ARK Venture Fund.

ARK Venture Fund’s portfolio extends well beyond SpaceX. Current holdings include OpenAI, Anthropic, Neuralink, Databricks, Replit, Crusoe, Radiant, Boom, Lambda, Discord, and over 50 other private companies. If SpaceX completes its IPO, it will be a significant milestone and will also free up capital and flexibility to continue building what ARK considers the most attractive private innovation portfolio accessible to ordinary investors.

Key Information

SpaceX’s IPO application remains a confidential registration statement draft at the time of this article’s publication. Final valuation, timing, and structure are yet to be confirmed. The public S-1 has not been released. All referenced data reflect publicly reported estimates and ARK’s independent research. This article does not constitute investment advice.

Holdings are subject to change at any time. This is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific securities.