Are private AI valuations richer than public-market ones?

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It depends on the stage. FutureX Capital's judgment is that public markets have set the tone and the excess return still sits in private rounds, but the pre-IPO stage is overheated: revenue multiples of 50 to 100x are the new norm, far above listed software.
The premium sits in the pre-IPO stage. FutureX's reading is that pre-IPO is overheated, with revenue multiples of 50 to 100x now the norm, and it treats that stage with great caution. For comparison, a16z, citing JPMAM, shows median EV to trailing revenue for listed horizontal software falling from 12.3x in 2020 to 2.7x in H1 2026, and for vertical software from 14.2x to 4.6x. Citing CapIQ, it puts software companies growing 20% to 40% at a median of about 9.5x forward revenue. Private pricing of the leading model companies is high too: OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise at about $1.4 trillion pre-money, about 28 times annualized revenue of about $50 billion (Reported).
China samples: Moonshot AI had ARR of about $300 million in June 2026 and closed a round at a $35 billion post-money valuation in July, more than 100 times ARR. DeepSeek had annualized revenue of $400 million to $500 million in July, which put a valuation of about $74 billion at roughly 148 to 185 times (Reported).
Public markets have set the tone and the excess return still sits in private rounds; that is FutureX's judgment. Listed markets supply the readings: peak intraday price over issue price since listing was 25.6x for Zhipu, 9.9x for MetaX, 8.2x for Moore Threads and 8.1x for MiniMax (Wind, as of mid-July 2026). By September 25 Zhipu was nearly 80% below its June 22 intraday high. a16z reads more of the value staying private: tender offers rarely price at a discount, and the best companies trade at a premium. This is a market view, not investment advice.
Per PitchBook and CapIQ data cited by a16z (as of September 1, 2026), the five largest private tech companies outside China, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe and Waymo, carry a combined latest valuation of $2.2 trillion. That is above the $1.73 trillion cumulative first-day closing value of a decade of tech IPOs (report p.66).