One of many causes I’ve been a long-time supporter and affiliate companion of Fundrise is its willingness to innovate. Since its founding in 2012, shortly after the JOBS Act opened non-public investments to retail buyers, Fundrise has constantly regarded for tactics to democratize entry to institutional-quality investments.
From launching diversified non-public actual property funds like its Heartland and Earnings funds, to increasing into enterprise capital by means of the Innovation Fund, Fundrise has steadily pushed into areas that had been as soon as reserved for big establishments and ultra-high-net-worth people.
So after I obtained an e mail from Fundrise asserting its plans to record the Innovation Fund on the New York Inventory Trade, below the ticker VCX, I used to be intrigued.
I are usually old-school in the case of investing. If one thing isn’t damaged, I’m typically reluctant to alter it. I’ve been an investor within the Innovation Fund since 2023 and now have over $700,000 invested throughout three accounts. My plan is to carry for the subsequent 5–10 years and trip the AI wave with a long-term mindset, largely with my youngsters’s future in thoughts.
Listed below are my preliminary ideas on the Innovation Fund doubtlessly itemizing on the NYSE after a day of digesting the information. I’ll replace this submit as I be taught extra and proceed to refine my views.
The Potential For Instantaneous Liquidity In Enterprise Capital
I’ve invested in conventional enterprise capital funds for over 15 years. That have has conditioned me to count on zero liquidity for a very long time. After I allocate capital to enterprise, usually as much as about 20% of my investable belongings, I assume I received’t see that cash once more for a minimum of 10 years.
The opposite 80% of my portfolio supplies liquidity. Shares, bonds, and even cryptocurrencies may be bought if money is required or if alternatives come up. Enterprise capital, against this, is supposed to be patient capital.
Fundrise already gives quarterly liquidity for the Innovation Fund, which is comparatively beneficiant by enterprise requirements. However offering that liquidity comes at a price, one I didn’t absolutely admire at first till I spoke to Ben Miller, CEO of Fundrise.
To satisfy quarterly redemption requests, roughly as much as 30% of the Innovation Fund has been allotted to liquid, lower-risk belongings similar to cash market funds and company bonds. These belongings present stability and liquidity, however in addition they dilute returns throughout sturdy markets.
For instance, in 2025, the Innovation Fund returned about 43.5%, pushed largely by distinctive efficiency from core holdings like OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, and Databricks. In the meantime, cash market funds averaged roughly 4% and company bonds about 6%.
When 30% of a fund is incomes a blended return nearer to five%, that acts as a significant drag throughout bull markets, very like holding extra money in a quickly rising portfolio. Throughout sturdy markets, there was little redemption strain anyway, as buyers needed to remain invested and often add more.
An NYSE Itemizing Provides Liquidity And A Potential Enhance In Efficiency
That is the place the potential NYSE itemizing turns into attention-grabbing.
If the Innovation Fund had been publicly listed, the necessity to maintain such a big proportion in low-return liquid belongings may very well be considerably lowered. Liquidity would come from the market itself, not the fund’s steadiness sheet.
Based mostly on easy again of the envelope math, if that 30% beforehand held in low-risk belongings had been as a substitute invested alongside the remainder of the portfolio, general returns would have been near 60%, as a substitute of 43.5%. In different phrases, the 30% of the fund incomes a low-risk 5% dragged down efficiency by 13.5%. That could be a vital price to offer liquidity to shareholders who principally did not want liquidity throughout a bull market.
After all, markets don’t transfer in straight strains. Corrections and bear markets are inevitable, particularly in extremely valued progress sectors like synthetic intelligence. When costs fall, buyers are inclined to observe the herd, shopping for close to peaks and promoting close to troughs.
In a extreme AI correction, a privately held fund providing quarterly liquidity might face redemption strain it can not instantly meet. That will probably require gating withdrawals, which creates frustration and operational complexity.
A publicly listed fund handles this dynamic in another way. In periods of intense promoting, the share worth merely adjusts to mirror provide and demand. Traders should then resolve whether or not promoting at depressed costs is sensible, or whether or not staying invested aligns higher with their long-term perception within the underlying firms.
Higher Credentials for Probably Higher Investments
Fundrise has been round for roughly 14 years and now manages over $3 billion in belongings. Whereas industrial actual property has confronted headwinds because the Federal Reserve raised charges aggressively beginning in 2022, these challenges are largely cyclical and asset-class particular fairly than reputational or operational. I am hopeful CRE has turned the corner.
Itemizing the Innovation Fund on the NYSE would additional improve Fundrise’s credibility and model. Getting listed is just not trivial. It requires intensive vetting by legal professionals, bankers, auditors, and regulators. All this requires money and time.
In some methods, it’s like getting right into a top-ranked college. It alerts the next stage of scrutiny, transparency, institutional acceptance, and general commonplace. In consequence, buyers could really feel extra assured in regards to the Innovation Fund, no more cautious. With higher confidence comes higher capital, and thereby extra funding alternatives.
After all, public listings don’t assure success. Poorly managed public funds nonetheless exist. However on steadiness, a NYSE itemizing sends a constructive sign that Fundrise is critical, sturdy, and right here for the long run.
For startups in search of capital, popularity issues. Founders consider buyers not simply on capital, however on monitor document, community, and talent to assist companies develop. In truth, one can argue that capital is a commodity as a result of there’s a lot capital sloshing round.
Fundrise Offers Extra Than Simply Capital
With over 380,000 buyers, Fundrise has a distribution benefit that few conventional enterprise corporations can match. Portfolio firms acquire visibility, potential clients, and credibility just by being related to the platform.
I’ve mentioned this earlier than with Ben Miller, Fundrise’s founder and CEO, together with how partnerships just like the one with Ramp helped drive significant adoption by means of cross-promotion. Ramp (Innovation Fund holding) talked about to Ben it was one of the vital profitable campaigns that they had run. Now Ramp has zoomed forward of BREX, its closest competitor that began two years earlier, and was not too long ago bought to Capital One.
As an Innovation Fund investor, I clearly need the portfolio firms to succeed. I’m one instance of an investor who may also help amplify consciousness, and there are numerous others who can as nicely throughout the platform.
Evaluate that with conventional enterprise corporations like Sequoia. They’ve elite reputations and distinctive companions, however entry is proscribed to establishments, insiders, and a small circle of founders. Additionally they can not immediately attain tons of of hundreds of engaged retail buyers the best way Fundrise can.
Fundrise can also be a personal firm operator itself, utilizing and testing merchandise from its personal portfolio. For startups evaluating potential buyers, that mixture of capital, platform, and operational perception is compelling.
Itemizing on the NYSE additional legitimizes that proposition.
Right here’s my podcast episode the place I focus on the accelerating adoption of AI and the Ramp partnership with Ben Miller, CEO of Fundrise.
The X-Issue: Premium or Low cost to Internet Asset Worth (NAV)
Earlier than going additional, it’s value clarifying what web asset worth, or NAV, truly means on this context.
NAV represents the per-share worth of the fund’s underlying belongings minus liabilities. In easy phrases, it’s the estimated worth of all the businesses and belongings the Innovation Fund owns, divided by the variety of shares excellent. When a fund is non-public, buyers usually transact at or very near NAV.
As soon as a fund is publicly listed, nevertheless, a second pressure comes into play: market provide and demand for the fund’s shares.
Whereas NAV continues to be pushed by the efficiency and valuation of the underlying portfolio firms, the buying and selling worth of the fund can transfer above or under NAV relying on investor sentiment, liquidity preferences, and shortage. This distinction exhibits up as a premium or low cost to NAV.
Traditionally, many closed-end funds, particularly these invested in illiquid belongings like actual property that’s tougher to promote, have traded at reductions to NAV, typically within the 5% to 10% vary. The explanations are normally sensible fairly than dramatic, starting from liquidity preferences and valuation uncertainty to skepticism about administration or the inconvenience of proudly owning a fund as a substitute of the belongings themselves.
That mentioned, shortage can flip the equation.
If demand for publicity to a selected set of personal firms far exceeds the out there float of shares, the fund’s market worth can commerce meaningfully above NAV. In these instances, worth actions are pushed much less by modifications within the underlying firm valuations and extra by provide / demand imbalances within the public market.
This dynamic already exists in pockets of the market. Some publicly traded autos with concentrated publicity to hard-to-access non-public firms have traded at sustained premiums, generally nicely above the worth of their underlying holdings.
For the Innovation Fund, this creates a further variable for buyers. Returns would not be pushed solely by how nicely the portfolio firms carry out, but additionally by how the market costs entry to these firms at a given second in time.
In different phrases, the worth of the underlying belongings nonetheless determines NAV, however the market’s urge for food for publicity determines whether or not buyers should buy or promote shares at a reduction or premium to that NAV. The more durable to achieve entry to the portfolio firms, doubtlessly, the upper the premium to NAV.
As a long-term investor, I assume the fund will commerce roughly round NAV, probably at a modest low cost. However as a result of the Innovation Fund owns scarce non-public belongings and will have restricted public float (8% or much less), there may be additionally a believable situation the place demand drives the share worth to a premium, a minimum of for intervals of time.
That further layer of provide and demand cuts each methods. It introduces volatility, but it surely additionally creates upside optionality that doesn’t exist in a purely non-public construction.
Instance Of A Closed-end Fund Buying and selling At A Premium To NAV: DXYZ
There’s clear precedent for publicly traded funds buying and selling at premiums to NAV. One notable instance is DXYZ, or the Future Tech100 Inc. fund, which has traded at anyplace from a 200% to 350% premium to its web asset worth. Again in November 2025, the fund’s NAV was roughly $7 per share, and it’s probably increased in the present day.
SpaceX accounts for about half of DXYZ’s holdings, which gives a robust indication of simply how a lot demand there may be for hard-to-access SpaceX publicity. Traders are successfully paying a considerable premium for comfort, shortage, and perceived long-term optionality.
As a savvy investor, it’s affordable to have a look at DXYZ and ask whether or not one thing comparable might occur if the Innovation Fund had been to develop into publicly traded. Based mostly on a CNBC snapshot from 3Q2025, Databricks, OpenAI, and Anthropic collectively made up roughly 50% of the Innovation Fund’s portfolio. The remaining portion consisted of different high-quality non-public firms similar to Canva, Anduril, Ramp, and, I consider, SpaceX as nicely.
One might argue that the Innovation Fund gives a extra diversified combine of personal progress firms with much less focus danger than DXYZ. If that’s the case, it’s not unreasonable to think about a situation the place the Innovation Fund might commerce at a significant premium as nicely, particularly given how troublesome it’s for many buyers to achieve publicity to those firms instantly.
NAV Might Additionally Decline As Nicely
That mentioned, premiums to NAV will not be assured and may be risky. Investor sentiment can shift shortly, notably throughout market corrections or intervals of rising rates of interest. Premiums can compress simply as quick as they increase, even when the underlying firms proceed to carry out nicely.
As well as, a extra diversified portfolio could scale back focus danger however may dilute the shortage impact that drives excessive premiums. In contrast to DXYZ, the place SpaceX dominates the narrative, the Innovation Fund’s broader publicity may lead the market to worth it extra conservatively.
The entire non-public firms held within the Innovation Fund stay scarce and troublesome to entry, even for well-connected buyers. In the meantime, ServiceTitan, now publicly traded below the ticker TTAN, represents lower than 2% of the fund (not 15% as proven within the graphic), reinforcing that the portfolio stays centered on non-public progress alternatives fairly than public market publicity.
Taken collectively, a premium is believable, but it surely needs to be considered as non-compulsory upside fairly than a base-case assumption. For long-term buyers, the first driver of returns ought to nonetheless be the efficiency of the underlying firms, with any premium to NAV handled as a bonus fairly than a assure.
Let’s Make A Practical Assumption Of NAV Potential For VCX
Let’s assume there’s a 50% probability the fund trades at a ten% low cost to NAV, a 20% probability it trades at par, and a 30% probability it trades at a 50% premium (not 200% – 350% premium like DXYZ, which I would not purchase). Below these assumptions, the anticipated worth of a $100,000 funding made earlier than itemizing could be about $110,000.
Even with the next likelihood of buying and selling at a reduction, that form of uneven payoff remains to be the kind of danger I’m snug taking as a long-term investor. It’s best to play with the assumptions your self to determine a number of life like situations.
Personally, I don’t plan to promote for a minimum of one other 5 years, and ideally ten. My purpose is to take a position till my children graduate school in about 16 years to hedge towards a doubtlessly bleak labor market as a result of AI. Time and compounding are on my aspect.m so the 6-month lockup submit a profitable VCX itemizing is just not a priority.
Given the tax implications of promoting, I would want a big premium to NAV to be tempted. If I consider the fund can compound at 20% yearly for 5 years, that’s roughly a 150% acquire simply by holding.
In that case, promoting solely is sensible at a big premium and with confidence I might redeploy the after-tax proceeds simply as successfully. In any other case, like many rich buyers, I’d fairly borrow against assets than sell them and pay taxes.
If the fund had been to commerce at an excessive premium, say 100% above NAV after the 6-month lockup, I would promote 25% of my place to lock in positive aspects and let the remaining 75% trip. That will be a miraculous ~$700,000 appreciation on my ~$700,000 complete place simply by means of an inventory. Taking some earnings balances prudence with long-term conviction.
And if VCX trades at a reduction to NAV, I will simply maintain like initially deliberate with the expectation the low cost will slender as visibility of VCX improves.
Constructing Transparency, Liquidity, and a Model
Having constructed Monetary Samurai since 2009, I perceive how troublesome it’s to develop a enterprise and a model. Generally momentum builds shortly. Different instances you get dragged by means of the mud and undergo. That volatility is solely a part of constructing one thing significant.
Fundrise’s try to record the Innovation Fund on the NYSE represents a step towards higher transparency, liquidity, and model sturdiness. It could additionally enhance entry to higher-quality offers over time, which is the primary purpose for each Fundrise and its buyers.
The charge construction stays engaging. Having the ability to put money into non-public progress firms of this high quality with out paying a 20% carry is uncommon. One closed-end enterprise fund I put money into fees 3% administration charges and 35% of earnings. By comparability, Fundrise’s new 2.5% charge with no carry is compelling.
The principle problem for buyers, myself included, will probably be staying disciplined. Larger liquidity makes it simpler to promote throughout downturns and to justify poor timing selections with convincing narratives. I could make each a bull and bear case for nearly any place I maintain, having educated myself to have a look at either side in an effort to keep away from being blindsided.
And there will probably be a correction in AI non-public firms sooner or later. The true take a look at will probably be whether or not buyers can maintain by means of volatility and even buy the dip in the event that they consider, as I do, that AI is a minimum of a decade-long pattern.
Investing In AI For The Lengthy-Time period
General, I’m excited to see what occurs with the vote to record. With a minimal funding quantity of solely $10, gaining publicity to the Innovation Fund is straightforward. If the itemizing doesn’t materialize, I’m snug with the established order. And if Fundrise launches new funds investing in promising non-public progress firms, I’ll be keen to judge these alternatives as nicely.
Readers, what do you concentrate on the Innovation Fund doubtlessly itemizing on the NYSE? Do you count on it to commerce at a premium or a reduction to NAV over time? And would you contemplate investing earlier than an inventory to doubtlessly profit from any NAV enlargement pushed by provide and demand?
Fundrise has been a long-time sponsor of Monetary Samurai, and I’m additionally an investor in Fundrise merchandise. I’ve spoken with and met Ben Miller, Fundrise’s co-founder and CEO, many instances over time, and our long-term funding philosophies are carefully aligned.
As with all danger belongings, there are not any ensures. Please make investments solely what you possibly can afford to lose and guarantee your general asset allocation means that you can keep disciplined by means of market cycles.
