The numbers look like they’re straight out of a fantasy.
In the first quarter of 2026, deal value for venture capital hit an all-time high. Exit value smashed records. Headlines cheered the “biggest quarter ever.”
But headlines can be misleading. As it turns out, these figures are being carried by a handful of monster deals. Strip them out, and the picture looks a lot less rosy.
Today I’ll walk you through what’s really happening — and explain why the smartest move right now might be the one that almost nobody is talking about.
Megadeals Are Doing All the Heavy Lifting
Q1’s $267 billion in deal value set a new all-time high. But $200 billion of that figure came from just five deals. OpenAI alone was responsible for almost half of it.
Meanwhile, most of the $347 billion in exit value was driven by SpaceX’s $250 billion acquisition of xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company.
In other words, this “boom” we’re experiencing isn’t broad. It’s narrow, deep, and hyper-concentrated in a tiny group of already-giant winners.
A Sharp Departure from the Old Playbook
It wasn’t always like this. Just a few years ago, the strategy for most venture capitalists looked very different:
Spread lots of small bets across dozens or even hundreds of early-stage companies.
The logic was simple: many startups fail, but the winners can return 10x, 100x, even 1,000x. Volume was your friend.
But now, driven by massive new venture funds, the industry has flipped. Huge amounts of capital are pouring into a few select companies that are already proven, already huge, and in many cases, already on the doorstep of going public.
It’s fewer bets, far bigger checks, and the companies are at a far later stage of their life.
So What Should You Invest In?
That’s the question investors like you should be asking yourselves right now.
Do you chase the handful of megadeals — the OpenAIs, Anthropics, and SpaceXs of the world — that are about to go public, and could deliver massive (but more “reasonable”) returns?
Or do you follow the proven venture-capital playbook of placing smaller bets on lots of early-stage startups, where valuations are low, the risk is higher — and the upside is absurdly higher?
My answer is simple. Yes.
You Should Invest in Both
The fastest-growing, highest-potential companies in the market right now — SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, and a short list of others — are still private. Massive IPOs for several of them are widely expected in the next 12 months and could smash records.
These aren’t speculative bets anymore. They’re proven growth engines. And getting exposure to them while they’re still private could be a smart financial move.
At the same time, you should be getting exposure to the early-stage world. This is where valuations are lower, risk is higher, and the potential payoff is far higher — 10x, 100x, 1,000x.
Just look at a few of the real-world examples that Brian wrote about last week:
- In 2010, Uber was just an idea: tap your phone, get a ride. One of its earliest investors put in $500,000. When Uber went public in 2019, that $500k turned into $2.5 billion.
- In 2009, Sequoia Capital invested in Airbnb when its shares were roughly a penny each. When it went public in 2020, those penny shares were valued at $145 apiece.
- Peter Thiel invested $500,000 into Facebook in 2004. When the company IPO’d in 2012, his stake turned into more than $1 billion. That’s a 2,000x return.
Outcomes like these don’t come from betting on companies that are already worth tens or hundreds of billions. They come from getting in when the company is just an idea.
That’s why the smart strategy isn’t either/or. It’s both:
Invest in a handful of late-stage unicorns for ballast. And then, over time, invest in a diversified portfolio of two or three dozen early-stage startups for the moonshot upside.
This Is What We Help You Do
At Crowdability, this is precisely what we do:
We help ordinary people invest in today’s highest-potential companies — early-stage startups and also late-stage startups — while they’re still private.
You can browse companies raising money right now on our Deals page. And when you’re ready to dive deeper, check out our premium-research service, Private Market Profits — where we show you how to invest in specific early-stage startups and late-stage startups like SpaceX.
The venture world is changing fast. The Q1 data proves it. But the real opportunities? They’re still hiding in plain sight — if you know where to look.
Happy investing,
Founder
Crowdability.com
