SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO gave venture investors a rare liquidity win in 2026, but it also exposed what one expert called "the biggest contradiction in the VC market so far this year": value creation is accelerating, yet liquidity remains concentrated among only a handful of companies.

During PitchBook’s midyear venture capital market update webinar, speakers pointed to continued strength in venture activity. The second quarter was estimated to become only the third quarter ever to surpass 5,000 completed deals, underscoring that dealmaking remains active despite a broader slowdown narrative.

Megadeals of $100 million or more accounted for 87.5% of the $412.7 billion deployed in the first half of 2026, according to PitchBook. Artificial intelligence companies captured 86% of all venture dollars, while three firms, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, and Founders Fund, accounted for 48.1% of all capital raised.

That concentration sits at the center of venture’s liquidity challenge. "The liquidity story for venture capital right now really comes down to a single question: what happens after the mega IPOs?" PitchBook senior research analyst Emily Zheng said.

SpaceX’s June IPO at roughly a $1.75 trillion valuation marked a major milestone for venture investors, but speakers said the bigger test will come from the next wave of potential AI listings. Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to become important pricing benchmarks for mature private AI companies.

"Liquidity is not widely available yet," Song said, adding that "these three companies have created more value than all VC-backed IPOs this century."

The issue, speakers argued, is that a small number of massive exits have not translated into broad-based liquidity across the venture market.

"M&A has not gone away. It’s just a market, the mechanism, the structure of it has changed meaningfully," one presenter said.

While acquisition activity continues, speakers described the current environment as a "barbell" market, where a few very large transactions generate most of the value while a long tail of smaller acquisitions provide limited returns for investors.

The same concentration is shaping venture fundraising. Through the second quarter, the market had generated roughly $72.5 billion in new commitments, keeping 2026 on pace to rank among the strongest fundraising years on record. But one speaker noted that "10 VC firms have raised about 77% of the total commitment," while "90% of the commitments to funds this year have gone to established managers."

The result is a market where the firms already positioned as leaders continue to capture the majority of new capital, the speakers explained.

Venture capital is no longer moving as one unified market, instead, "bifurcation and concentration" have become "the defining features of the venture ecosystem," with "a small number of fast-growing, usually native companies" capturing "the lion’s share of total capital deployed."

That leaves the remainder of the year dependent on a small group of companies and public market outcomes.

If Anthropic and OpenAI can sustain their lofty private valuations after going public, they could reinforce confidence in late-stage venture pricing. If not, the market could face a sharper reassessment.

For now, PitchBook’s midyear data points to a venture market that remains active, but where the benefits of growth and liquidity are still largely concentrated among a small group of mega winners.

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