If you hold a stake in a late-stage private company, you know the feeling. The number on your statement is big. The way to turn it into cash isn’t there.
Here’s how big the problem is. PitchBook-NVCA’s US venture report counted 992 active unicorns at the end of September 2026. PitchBook defines a unicorn as a venture-backed company that has raised a round at a value of $1 billion or more. Together they’re marked at $5.7 trillion. That’s a record count, up 14.9% from a year earlier.
In the third quarter, 18 US venture-backed companies went public. Twelve of them were in healthcare.
So the marks are big. The exits aren’t there. The question I care about is the one you care about. Which of these companies will turn a mark into cash, and which won’t?
For those of you that are uncool, like me, a “mark” is the value a company is carried at on paper, usually the price from its last funding round. It’s investor jargon for “valued at,” as in “together they’re marked at $5.7 trillion.” It’s not what anyone has actually paid for the shares, so the point is that the mark and the real sale price can be very far apart.
I can’t tell you when the market reopens. Nobody can. What I can give you is a test you can run today, on the companies you hold, using one thing: does the business model actually work?
What the data says about getting out
The biggest listing of the year didn’t fix it. SpaceX went public in June 2026 at a value of about $1.77 trillion. PitchBook says the IPO window hadn’t reopened as of its October report. Take that one listing out of 2026 and exit value looks like every other year since the pandemic.
The line of companies waiting is long. PitchBook says the companies that need to be public, or should be by now, add up to more than two full years of IPOs. And new ones keep joining. In 2026 so far, 179 US companies became unicorns. Only 2021 had more IPOs than that in a single year.
PitchBook’s own chart makes the same point. Money put in beat exit value in each year from 2022 to 2025. 2026 only flips because of SpaceX.
Time is part of the cost, too. PitchBook found that 45% of US unicorns took their first venture money at least nine years ago, as of September 2025. For US companies outside life sciences that went public valued above $500 million, the median time from first venture money to IPO was 11.5 years. That’s PitchBook’s data as of Sept 30, 2025.
What buyers pay when you do get out
When there’s a sale, the price can be far from the mark.
Forge, a private share marketplace, tracks an indicative price for companies that trade there. It’s not what any seller got. Forge’s chart, posted Sept 22, 2026 with data as of Sept 11, shows the median price for companies that last raised in 2021 sitting about 60% below that round. For companies that last raised in 2023, it’s about 40% below.
Two company sales show it. Miro was once valued at $17.5 billion. Bending Spoons closed its purchase of Miro on Oct 26, 2026. The price was about $1.8 billion, counting the cash Miro held. That’s about 90% less than its peak.
Airtable was once valued at $11.7 billion. The same buyer closed its purchase of Airtable on Sept 4, 2026. The price was about $2.25 billion, counting Airtable’s cash. That’s about 80% less.
One more. Chime went public in June 2025 at a value more than half below its private peak, according to PitchBook.
The deal prices are real. The Forge numbers are an indicative price, not a sale. None of it is a forecast. It tells you the mark and the price can be far apart.
One note on the count. The 992 is PitchBook’s count of US companies. Crunchbase lists 1,920 worldwide, worth $9.5 trillion, as of November 4. Different lists follow different rules. When you see a unicorn number, ask who counted and when.
What I mean by a story model
I use one test, and it isn’t market size, growth rate, or who led the last round.
Does the business model get a job done for the person doing the job, at a lower cost than their way today?
I call the person doing the job the job executor. Their way today has a cost. Hours, tools, fixes, waste. If a company can lower that cost, customers have a real reason to pay, and to keep paying.
A story model is growth funded by capital that never proved it lowers that cost. Customers show up because the price is held low, or because investors cover the bill. The revenue line goes up. Nobody has shown the customer is better off at a price that pays for the service.
I’m not saying any company named in this piece is a story model. I don’t have their numbers. I’m saying the test tells you which of your holdings have the proof and which only have the story.
The test matters more in AI. PitchBook says AI training costs have soared, and that this challenges business models. PitchBook also points to uncertainty about the true cost of AI. And 82.7% of US venture deal value this year went to AI companies. When nobody is sure what it costs to serve a customer, the question of who pays gets sharper.
The test: three checks and a line
Check 1. Is there a gap to win?
Add up today’s cost of one run of the job, the way it’s done now. Then work out the lowest possible cost of one run, if only the work that must happen were left. Divide today’s cost by the lowest possible cost. That’s the ratio. If today’s cost is already close to the lowest possible, there’s little to win, however good the story sounds.
Check 2. Does the product close the gap for the customer?
The customer’s all-in cost has to come in below today’s cost. That means the price, plus their time, plus their fixes. And the price has to cover what it costs the company to serve them. If the price only works because investors make up the difference, that’s a subsidy. It isn’t a lower cost.
Check 3. Who pays for the growth?
Look for customers who pay full price and stay. No credits, no free months, no discount that investors fund. Ask for the numbers on the weakest customers, too, not only the best ones.
Write the line first.
Before you open the data room, write down your stop line and date it. Write it before you see the numbers. Mine is: “If my ratio is under my line, I stop or settle for small fixes.”
The line depends on the kind of work. For physical work it’s 10. For financial or compliance work it’s 50. For repeating digital work it’s 100.
The digital line is high on purpose. Real life takes a big cut out of a gain on paper. I set it by assuming about a tenth of a gap turns into real savings. That’s an assumption. I haven’t measured it. Change it and the line moves.
Then decide your call, before the data comes in: go, stop, or change.
A made-up example
Company X is made up. It sells software that sorts incoming customer requests. One run is one request.
Today, handling one request costs a customer 60 units. The lowest possible cost is 0.4 units. The ratio is 150. The line for repeating digital work is 100. So the gap is wide enough, and the study goes on.
Before looking at customer data, the investor writes the lines and dates them. “Of the ten biggest customers, I need at least seven paying full price, with no credit funded by investors. If fewer than four do, I stop. Between four and six, I change one thing and test again in 90 days.”
The result: five of the ten pay full price.
Five sits between the lines. It’s not a go, and it’s not a stop. It’s a change. The investor can’t move the line to make five a pass. They change one thing that customers named, say the price, and test again on the date they set.
That’s the whole method. A ratio, a line written first, a test of who pays, and a call you can defend.
What to do this week
List your late-stage holdings, largest mark first.
For the top few, ask management two things. What does one run of the customer’s job cost today, and what’s the lowest possible cost, with a source for each line? And what share of customers pay full price and stay?
Write your go, stop and change lines and date them. Then read the answers against them.
If a holding lands on stop, that means no more money into it until the evidence changes. It also means you should know what a buyer would pay today. The prices above show how far that can be from the mark.
This isn’t advice on any one company or share. It’s a way to sort what you hold by what’s been proven.
What I can’t tell you
When the IPO window opens.
Whether any company named here is a story model. I only used them for the prices that were paid.
What your own holdings are worth. A mark is not a price.
Have a portfolio company with a bet like this on its desk? Forward this to the exec who owns it, or book a call and we’ll go through your bets together.
Sources
PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, Q3 2026 (data as of Sept 30, 2026): https://nvca.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Q3-2026-PitchBook-NVCA-Venture-Monitor.pdf and https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q3-2026-pitchbook-nvca-venture-monitor
Benzinga, Oct 9, 2026, on the same report: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/private-markets/26/10/62283775/spacexs-1-7-trillion-ipo-didnt-save-the-vc-exit-market-992-unicorns-are-still-waiting
PitchBook, “What is a unicorn company?”: https://pitchbook.com/blog/what-is-a-unicorn
Forge Private Market Update, Sept 22, 2026 (chart data as of Sept 11, 2026): https://forgeglobal.com/insights/private-market-updates/great-reset-new-phase-discounted-acquisitions-september-2026/
Bending Spoons, Miro purchase completed Oct 26, 2026: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-completes-the-acquisition-of-miro and deal terms Sept 10, 2026: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-miro
Bending Spoons, Airtable purchase completed Sept 4, 2026: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-completes-acquisition-of-airtable and deal terms Aug 4, 2026: https://investors.bendingspoons.com/newsroom/bending-spoons-agrees-to-acquire-airtable
Miro Series C, Jan 5, 2022: https://miro.com/newsroom/miro-series-c/
PitchBook, Chime IPO, June 12, 2025: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/chimes-ipo-signals-down-rounds-are-here-to-stay
SpaceX IPO pricing, June 11, 2026: https://ir.spacex.com/updates/releases-details/2026/Space-Exploration-Technologies-Corp--Announces-Pricing-of-Initial-Public-Offering/default.aspx
PitchBook analyst note “Seed Under Pressure,” Oct 28, 2025 (data as of Sept 30, 2025): https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/Q4_2025_PitchBook_Analyst_Note_Seed_Under_Pressure_20476.pdf
Crunchbase Unicorn Board, updated Nov 4, 2026: https://news.crunchbase.com/unicorn-company-list/
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