Nicole Junkermann holds stakes in the AI companies now driving the global tech IPO wave

For much of the past fifteen years, the most consequential technology companies in the world were built almost entirely outside public markets. Nicole Junkermann argues that as some of them finally approach listing, the question investors should be asking is not simply about valuations — it is about who gets to participate in the technologies now restructuring the global economy. The pattern represents a significant departure from how previous technology waves unfolded. Microsoft, Amazon and Google all went public while substantial portions of their growth remained ahead of them, which meant that pension funds, retirement accounts and individual investors could participate in the value creation that followed. The abundance of venture capital, sovereign wealth and private investment over the past decade and a half allowed a different generation of companies to remain private far longer — reaching valuations of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars before public market investors had the opportunity to acquire a single share. That gap is beginning to close. Through the first five months of 2026 alone, public markets absorbed more than thirty-four billion dollars in new technology listings, a figure representing an increase of over one hundred and sixty percent against the equivalent period a year earlier. More significantly, artificial intelligence companies now account for the substantial majority of the pipeline, making this the most AI-concentrated IPO environment on record. The question is no longer whether these companies will come to market. It is what happens when they do. What Nicole Junkermann sees in the gap between private innovation and public participation Nicole Junkermann, founder of NJF Holdings, has argued that the extended private phase of the current technology cycle has created a growing structural divide between where innovation is happening and who can access it. "We are living through an extraordinary period of technological transformation," she has said. "Artificial intelligence, advanced computing, digital infrastructure and commercial space are reshaping entire industries. The question is whether the benefits of that transformation remain concentrated among private investors or become accessible to a much wider group." Junkermann has spent a significant portion of her career backing emerging technology companies at early stages — including positions in commercial space, where NJF Capital held a stake in Swarm Technologies, a satellite connectivity company acquired by SpaceX in 2021. That trajectory has given her a close view of how some of the most consequential companies of the past decade were built largely outside the visibility of public markets. The private model carries genuine advantages. Remaining unlisted allows companies to focus on long-term growth without the pressure of quarterly reporting cycles — to experiment, invest and develop without the continuous scrutiny that public status brings. The maturation of secondary markets has also created new liquidity pathways for employees and early investors, reducing the urgency to pursue an IPO purely to unlock capital. Nicole Junkermann on what the AI IPO wave means for long-term investors Nicole Junkermann acknowledges the limitations of private markets are equally real. However sophisticated secondary markets become, they remain accessible to a relatively narrow group of participants. Public equity markets serve a distinct function in modern capitalism: transparency, liquidity and, perhaps most importantly, broad participation. They allow pension funds, retirement plans and individual investors access to economic growth that would otherwise remain concentrated within private networks. That is what makes the current moment particularly significant. Many of the most influential private companies today sit at the centre of technologies likely to define the coming decades. AI companies are building the infrastructure that may underpin future economies. Commercial space is transforming launch economics, satellite communications and defence capabilities. Advanced software and data companies are becoming foundational layers of the digital world across every major industry. Whether these companies list this year or over the next several years matters less than the general direction. At some point, a meaningful number of them will seek access to public capital markets — and when they do, their implications will extend well beyond their individual valuations. The history of financial markets is, in many respects, the history of technological change. Railroads transformed nineteenth-century markets. Industrial companies dominated much of the twentieth. The internet era created an entirely new generation of public market winners. Each wave allowed investors to participate in technologies reorganising the economy around them. Artificial intelligence and commercial space increasingly appear to represent the next. That does not mean every company will reward investors. Many will disappoint. Valuations will fluctuate and market enthusiasm will in some cases run well ahead of operational reality. Technology revolutions create winners and losers, and distinguishing between them is rarely straightforward at the point when optimism is highest. How Nicole Junkermann reads the AI infrastructure opportunity as public markets open up Junkermann's view, nonetheless, is that the broader trajectory is meaningful. "For much of the last decade, many of the most promising growth stories stayed private," she has argued. "If more of these companies eventually reach public markets, that creates an opportunity for a much larger group of investors to participate in the technologies shaping the future." In her analysis, that shift — from a decade of private concentration toward broader public participation in AI infrastructure — would represent one of the more significant structural changes in how technology value is distributed since the internet era. For Nicole Junkermann, the opening of public markets to AI-native companies is not simply a liquidity event for early investors. It is the point at which the broader economy begins to participate in a transformation that has so far unfolded largely out of sight.