Nicholas Mugalli
Institutional TMT & Macro Research, AI/Semiconductors/Policy
Fundrise Innovation Fund is dangerously overpriced after a 1,100% surge in a week. Buyers are paying about 20 times its value, implying a $5.5 trillion valuation for Anthropic, its 21% holding, while Anthropic trades at $500 billion at best in the secondary market. The frenzy reflects desperation for exposure to private AI leaders that refuse to go public, not the fund's worth, so it should not be chased. x.com
The Fundrise Innovation Fund looks like a greater-fool trade: after rising 1,288% this month it trades at roughly 20x NAV, a 1,500-2,000% premium. Its holdings are weighted toward Anthropic, Databricks, OpenAI, Anduril and SpaceX, so buying it is like paying $34 trillion for SpaceX or $16 trillion for OpenAI. Shorting is impractical given its very low float and lack of options for hedging, but buying in means playing hot potato. x.com
The Fundrise Innovation Fund trades above $400 against a NAV of about $20, a 20x premium not seen even in the 2000 bubble and a sign of peak AI madness. By contrast, venture investors like Kinnevik trade at about a 75% discount to NAV with net cash. x.com
VCX should keep rising during Anthropic's IPO marketing on retail hype, with every update touting the deal as 100x oversubscribed and indicated to open far above its initial range. x.com
The Fundrise Innovation Fund is not the right way to get venture exposure, even though a venture allocation can benefit long-term investors. A purposefully engineered squeeze on hype-cycle assets just creates more retail bag holders rather than better strategic portfolios. x.com
Fundrise's private startup ETF trades at 19x NAV, which means paying $19 for something worth $1. Fairer private-market exposure exists: Kraken Robotics supplies $2-8M of components per Anduril subsea drone; EchoStar's SpaceX stake implies about $140 a share of NAV at a $1.75T SpaceX valuation, versus $115; and Stack Capital holds OpenAI, Crusoe, SpaceX, Canva and Shield AI at about 1x NAV. Buyers of the ETF risk becoming exit liquidity in a meme stock. x.com x.com
Fundrise's VCX fund, which owns Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX, could squeeze higher as those private giants keep getting rerated almost every week. Its chart is flagging and getting very tight. x.com
SK Telecom is a far cheaper way to own Anthropic than the Fundrise Innovation Fund. SK Telecom's $100M 2023 stake is estimated at about $2B, roughly 15–20% of its market cap, inside a cash-flowing Korean telecom with a 3–4% dividend that gives it a floor. VCX ran from $31 to $380 in a month against an $18.97 NAV, so Anthropic is only about 1.5% of its value; a reversion toward NAV would be a 90%+ drawdown even if Anthropic performs. The pair runs to January 2027. x.com x.com x.com
Fundrise Innovation Fund is a story rather than a position for playing Anthropic and the AI race. It trades at a 14 times premium to its net asset value, and its lockup expires in September. Owning what the AI race actually pays for, such as Nvidia, TSMC, Broadcom and Corning, is the better trade. x.com
Fundrise's Innovation Fund is a low-volume pump and dump, so buying it is gambling, not investing. Per @JoshKale, the fund, which holds Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Databricks and Anduril, has a $19 NAV per share but traded at $312 after a 1,500% jump in five days, valuing a $650 million fund at $5.4 billion. It could go higher, but chasing a stock trading this erratically on around 500K volume is foolish. x.com x.com x.com
Fundrise Innovation Fund's price is detached from intrinsic value and will eventually see a mighty rug pull. It ran from the $40s-$110s to about $550 within a week, and at this point it can trade at any price since fundamentals no longer anchor it, much like GameStop during the meme frenzy. Even a 50% fall would only take it to about $275. x.com x.com x.com
