Analysis
Pulse's funding tracker counted $257.4 billion in private venture deals across 21 weeks of 2026, against just $830 million combined from the week's two largest disclosed IPO pricings -- a roughly 300-to-1 gap between what's flowing into private rounds and what's actually pricing in public markets.
Firmus's renewed IPO pullback this week, after bankers floated cutting its ask toward a lower range and still found insufficient demand, is now the single largest withdrawal inside that tracking window.
“Until that changes, expect the private-to-public gap to keep widening with each large infrastructure name that tests, and fails to clear, the public market's bar.”
The gap isn't uniform across sectors:
- Biotech — Iambic Therapeutics rose 18.19% on its trading debut; City Therapeutics priced a $200M offering the same week, continuing a run Pulse has tracked all month even as Anthropic and OpenAI stay in pre-IPO limbo.
- SPACs — TCGX Acquisition Corp II priced a $100M IPO and popped 12% on debut, part of a SPAC revival built on leaner, no-warrant structures.
- Mega-cap AI infrastructure — Nscale's reported valuation range keeps swinging between $25B and $35B weeks before its roadshow, and Firmus couldn't find buyers even at a discount to its original ask.
The pattern across both strained categories is the same -- public investors want proof of durable unit economics on AI infrastructure bets, not growth-stage private marks translated directly into a public multiple. Until that changes, expect the private-to-public gap to keep widening with each large infrastructure name that tests, and fails to clear, the public market's bar.