Alternative Investing Report - September 11, 2025

*as of 9/10; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

The fintech startup Klarna had its much anticipated IPO, with shares priced at $40, above the expected range of $35-$37, raising $1.4 billion in total. Because of massive demand, shares opened on the market at $52 per share, and closed the day at $45.82, 15% above the IPO price, giving the company a market cap of $17.3 billion.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While it wasn’t a massive debut, the size of the IPO and the solid performance is enough to deem it a success. Many of the 34.3 million shares sold in the offering came from existing investors, rather than the company, meaning a lot of pre-IPO investors cashed out, some at a significant profit. The recent spate of IPOs, and others coming up, such as Figure, Gemini, and Stubhub, are starting to inject some much-needed liquidity into the ecosystem and could encourage even more companies to consider their own offerings in the coming months.

Vincent CEO Eric Cantor was a guest on the latest episode of the Venture Everywhere podcast talking about opening up access to private market opportunities that were once reserved for institutions and empowering everyday investors to confidently explore alternatives.

📈 New stock index: Morningstar and Pitchbook teamed up to create the U.S. Modern Market 100 index, which combines 90 public U.S. companies and 10 private companies, including SpaceX and OpenAI, with the goal of giving a more accurate picture of the overall equities market.

🪙 Crypto VC funding rises: Funding to crypto startups hit $16 billion in the first half of 2025, a 54% year-over-year gain, and is on pace to top the combined total of the last two years.

🎨 Christies shutters department: In another casualty of the NFT bubble popping, the auction house is closing down its digital art department, though it will continue to sell digital art within its larger sales.

🏡 Asking rents rise: The median U.S. asking rent is up 2.6% year-over-year, the biggest yearly increase since 2022, as the supply of new apartments coming to the market has fallen by nearly half in the last year.

🤖 Reflection.AI fundraise: The year-old AI startup backed by Nvidia is reportedly raising a $1 billion funding round at a $5.5 billion valuation, more than ten times the company’s valuation from six months ago.

🚀 SpaceX’s $17B deal: The private space startup is paying $17 billion to EchoStar for wireless spectrum and mobile satellite service spectrum licenses to build out Starlink’s direct-to-phone satellite internet service.

🪙 Nasdaq pursuing tokenization: The exchange filed with the SEC to trade tokenizing and traditional shares under the same framework, a development that could bring tokenized stocks to the mainstream as soon as next year.

🥃 Bonhams whiskey auction: A spirits auction at Bonhams that closes next month features a 30-year old whiskey cask that could sell for $400,000 or more, as well as a 71 year-old bottle of Macallan.

OpenAI is jumping into the movie business, developing a feature-length animated film that is scheduled to hit theaters in 2026. “Critterz” will be made primarily with OpenAI’s video tools, including GPT-5, and has a budget of $30 million, significantly less than a traditional animated film. It is also expected to be produced in nine months, which is a much quicker timeframe than usual. The script is being written by actual humans and the characters will also be voiced by human voice actors, so it is not an entirely AI undertaking. Still, it will present an interesting test case for how the general public will react to a AI movie and how much controversy it may stir up.