The Teracorn Era Is Here

Value creation is staying private. Liquidity is learning to follow it as venture secondaries become a crucial on-ramp.

For most of modern venture history, the script was straightforward: invest early, support the company, and wait for an IPO or acquisition to unlock returns.

That script is now being rewritten as two powerful signals are converging:

• Private companies are reaching public-market scale while staying private. Forge has framed this as the dawn of the “teracorn” era, or trillion-dollar private market caps.

• At the same time, the secondary market has grown up. PitchBook estimates $106.3B in U.S. venture secondary transaction value in 2025. At that scale, it is no longer a niche corner of the market, but something approaching a core liquidity channel.

At PrePublic Equity Partners (PEP) we see this not as a cycle, but as an evolution.

Value creation is increasingly happening before the IPO. And, alongside that, liquidity is also increasingly happening without the IPO.

That changes how thoughtful investors should think about access.

1) When “Late-Stage” Becomes Its Own Asset Class

Forge’s framing of SpaceX — via an implied ~$1T valuation in connection with xAI — is less about headlines and more about time horizon.

Apple became the first U.S. public company to reach $1T in 2018 — after decades of operating and decades as a public company. SpaceX reached comparable scale in roughly ~23 years, entirely private.

The more important takeaway isn’t the label “teracorn.” It’s what it implies:

• Companies can now reach massive scale, durability, and strategic relevance without listing.

• The compounding engine — and much of the upside — increasingly sits in what used to be called the “pre-IPO window,” but now can stretch a decade or more.

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Forge also highlights that the top 100 private companies grew in aggregate value from ~$955B (Dec 2022) to ~$3.5T (Feb 2026). Importantly, value is concentrating at the top.

This isn’t just “companies staying private longer.”

They’re staying private bigger.

For investors, that means the old access model — get into the early fund and wait — is no longer the only path to meaningful exposure.

2) Secondaries Are Moving from Escape Valve to Infrastructure

When companies stay private longer, predictable pressure builds:

• Employees want liquidity without changing jobs.

• Early investors want partial realizations.

• New investors want access to elite companies that aren’t IPO’ing on a traditional timeline.

  
  

Secondaries step in to relieve that pressure — not as a side-show, but as infrastructure.

PitchBook’s estimate of $106.3B in U.S. venture secondary volume (2025) reflects a market that is no longer experimental. Direct secondaries and GP-led transactions are now large enough to matter at scale.

But this is where nuance matters.

A) Opacity — and Why Pricing Still Matters

The range of estimates for direct secondaries can be wide. Disclosure is limited. Execution venues are fragmented.

Opacity creates:

• Uneven access

• Inconsistent pricing

• Significant dispersion between disciplined and undisciplined buyers

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In other words, this is not a passive beta market. It rewards underwriting.

B) Concentration — and Why Access Still Matters

Trading volume clusters in a handful of elite names — the very companies most investors want exposure to.

Liquidity forms first where:

• Demand is strongest

• Information is richest

• Confidence is highest

  
  

That concentration is natural in a maturing market. But it also means relationships and process matter more than ever.

Secondaries are big.They’re growing.And they’re still inefficient.

That combination is rarely permanent.

3) Tender Offers: The New Cadence of Private Liquidity

Another accelerant: structured tender offers.

Instead of waiting for IPO day, companies are increasingly running periodic liquidity events that:

• Provide employee and early-holder liquidity

• Allow companies to manage their cap tables

• Reduce retention pressure caused by “golden handcuffs”

  
  

In effect, private companies are behaving more like public companies in the one dimension that historically forced them public — liquidity.

Liquidity is being operationalized.

And that has profound implications for how capital flows into — and out of — late-stage private companies.

4) What This Means for Investors — and Why PEP Exists

Put the trends together:

• Teracorns demonstrate that public-market-scale value creation can occur entirely in private markets.

• Secondaries demonstrate that liquidity can increasingly occur in private markets.

  
  

That combination reshapes portfolio construction.

Historically, access to the best private companies was:

• Concentrated among top-tier venture funds

• Relationship-gated

• Realized only through formal exit events

  
  

Today, access can increasingly be underwritten through:

• Direct secondary purchases

• Structured tender participation

• Purpose-built liquidity programs

  
  

If — and this is critical — you can navigate fragmentation, legal complexity, transfer restrictions, and information asymmetry.

That is precisely the lane PEP is built for.

Our focus is disciplined, repeatable underwriting of high-conviction late-stage private opportunities — particularly where fundamentals and market structure create mispricing.

This is not about chasing headlines. It’s about understanding where value is compounding and how liquidity is evolving.

As I’ve often said, venture capital isn’t just about writing checks — it’s about creating real value through networks and long-term partnership.

Secondaries, done right, are an extension of that philosophy.

5) The Risks Investors Shouldn’t Ignore

This is not a “secondaries are always good” story.

It’s a “secondaries are now important enough to do correctly” story.

Three risk categories matter:

Structure risk: SPVs, forwards, transfer approvals, and company consent dynamics can change outcomes even when the underlying business is strong.

Concentration risk: When liquidity clusters in a few names, shifts in sentiment — or a sudden IPO wave — can alter market dynamics quickly.

Pricing risk: Private pricing is not public pricing. Benchmarks are improving, but dispersion remains wide in opaque corners of the market.

The opportunity is real.

But underwriting needs to be real too.

Where We Go From Here

We believe 2026+ will be remembered as the period when:

• Trillion-dollar private market caps stopped sounding theoretical.

• Venture secondaries stopped being a niche tool and became core infrastructure.

  
  

The long game hasn’t changed.

But the path to access has.

We’re building for the teracorn era — patiently, transparently, and with discipline.

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RESEARCH DISCLOSURE This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It represents independent thematic analysis prepared by PrePublic Equity Partners ("PEP") and is intended to discuss industry trends and company dynamics in the private markets. This content does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security or investment product. PEP is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. Any offer or solicitation relating to securities will be made only through definitive offering documents to eligible investors. PEP and its affiliates may hold financial interests in companies discussed herein and reserve the right to trade such positions at any time without notice. Private market investing involves significant risk, including illiquidity and potential loss of principal. All data is sourced from publicly available information and has not been independently verified.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE This content is published by PrePublic Equity Partners ("PEP") for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute an offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy, any security. No such offer or solicitation is made except by means of a confidential Private Placement Memorandum or other definitive offering documents delivered to eligible investors only. PEP is not a registered investment adviser with the SEC or any state securities regulator. Nothing in this article should be construed as personalized investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. All views are the opinions of the author as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. Private market and pre-IPO investing involves a high degree of risk, including illiquidity, potential total loss of principal, and reliance on unverified private company data. Past analytical observations are not indicative of future results. PEP and its affiliates, officers, or employees may hold financial interests in companies discussed in this article. PEP reserves the right to buy or sell such positions at any time without notice. PEP does not receive compensation from issuers mentioned in its research. PEP is an independently operated subsidiary of Alumni Ventures, LLC.