Most data for today’s episode was provided by our partner Multiples.vc, your go-to source for verified M&A valuation multiples and public comps based on analyst estimates, at a fraction of the price of legacy data providers.

With this monthly format, we aim to unify market & valuation data into a single episode, so you don’t need to check various sources for a complete picture. Here’s what we’ll cover today:

We have a lot on the agenda, so let’s jump in👇

SpaceX made the biggest move in the last few weeks, doubling its valuation to $800bn with 2026 IPO plans targeting as much as $1.5tn. This re-rating reflects strong demand for equity from institutional investors, back-solicited placements, and renewed confidence in the company’s long-term growth trajectory, particularly driven by Starlink’s accelerating broadband adoption and SpaceX’s expanding launch cadence and government contract backlog. The valuation also implies that investors are increasingly pricing in the Optionality of future revenue streams (e.g., Starlink v2, next-gen satellites, and reusable launch economics) rather than purely historical financials.

OpenAI and Tether remain roughly flat at ~$500B. Following the impressive Google Gemini release end of November, Sam Altman called “code red” early December and worked hard to retain their leading position. The results? GPT5.2 release with strong Codex and Image gen performance, $1bn investment by Disney, and IPO rumours for 2026. The race is on.

Databricks also edges into the spotlight, moving from roughly $100B to $134B, while the rest of the list stays largely unchanged. Overall, December feels less like a broad repricing and more like a selective bet on who might realistically hit public markets next.

Talking about the private market asset class, one bottleneck remains liquidity. So let’s look at the first of two channels: IPOs.

Public listing activity remains low.

After an active summer with companies like Figma or Klarna successfuly completing their IPOs, we didn’t see any tech IPO in the last two months. It’s a broader reflection of 2025: Tech IPO activity reopened, but only for quality. Listings were concentrated in AI, data infrastructure, fintech, and cybersecurity, with investors clearly prioritizing scale, revenue visibility, and improving margins. Many headline companies stayed private, using 2025 to reset valuations, clean up balance sheets, and test public-market appetite rather than rush out.

Looking ahead, 2026 starts with a huge backlog of high-quality private assets. The most likely candidates range from AI and data infrastructure leaders such as Databricks, OpenAI (structure permitting), and Anthropic; to fintech scale players like Stripe, Revolut, and Chime once market windows align; and platform companies with durable cash flows such as ByteDance, Canva, and Discord. On the industrial and frontier side, SpaceX (potentially via Starlink) stands out if IPO rumors solidify, while cybersecurity and enterprise software names like Snyk and Rippling round out the cohort of companies that could credibly anchor large, institutionally supported listings in 2026.

In light of very few public listings in the last few months, M&A has surged to become the more critical path for liquidity this year.

M&A activity remains high.

In the chart above, we only include M&A transactions with confirmed EVs available at Multiples.vc, thus structurally exclude the long tail noise of smaller EV transactions.

While we’ll end the year at 84% in number of transactions relative to the FY2024 (3.109 deals YTD vs 3708 deals in FY 2024), the deal volume surpassed the FY2024 by 14% - a clear indication towards fewer but significantly bigger transactions as confirmed by a 56% increase in deal size YoY.

Over the last 30 days, M&A activity has been dominated by large, strategic transactions across media, healthcare, crypto, aerospace, AI infrastructure, and energy, with clear participation from mega-cap buyers like Netflix, Abbott, Goldman Sachs, and Marvell. The top 10 deals show a median EV of ~$3.1B, dramatically higher than the overall market median of ~$278M, underscoring that deal flow is being driven by scale acquisitions rather than broad-based mid-market activity.

Valuations reflect this concentration at the top: top-10 deals trade at a median ~7.1× revenue and ~41.7× EBITDA, well above what’s typical for the broader market, pointing to scarcity pricing for high-quality or strategically critical assets. Overall, the data signals continued consolidation by incumbents, particularly in content, healthcare, AI/data infrastructure, and energy, with buyers willing to pay up for assets that offer defensibility, scale, or long-term strategic leverage.

Commercial details for majority of the transactions in the last 30 days were not disclosed. Where available, we find standout multiples in data centers/AI (Celestial AI at 6.5×), blockchain (Dunamu at 9.5×), and biopharma (Exact Sciences at 7.7× revenue and 66.7× EBITDA). Compared to the broader market, these transactions sit firmly at the top end of valuation, reflecting buyers’ willingness to pay up for assets with strong growth visibility or strategic importance.

While enterprise values span from small tuck-ins to multi-billion-dollar platforms, the top-10 median EV of ~$404M still exceeds the overall market median of ~$278M, and multiples remain elevated at ~7.1× revenue, well above typical M&A pricing.

Overall, the chart reinforces a familiar pattern: acquirers are highly selective, but when assets combine differentiated technology, defensible positioning, or critical infrastructure exposure, pricing quickly moves into premium territory.

Compared to last month, multiples are (slightly) down and companies remain under pressure.

Let’s start with a snapshot of top companies based on EV / NTM Revenue multiples. For all analysis below, we exclude companies with market caps below $1B and non-meaningful multiples above 100x.

Palantir remained firmly #1, with its multiple rebounding from 67.4× to 69.9×, supported by unchanged growth and margin strength. AppLovin moved higher in the ranking as its multiple expanded from 25.1× to 29.3×, while Cloudflare also re-rated upward. At the same time, Datadog and Figma dropped out, replaced by Cadence, Shopify, and Verisign, signaling a shift toward more mature, cash-generative software and infrastructure names.

Valuations edged slightly lower overall: the top-10 average fell from 24.3× to 23.8×, and the median from 18.7× to 17.5×, while growth remained stable at ~24% and EBITDA margins actually improved. The December list reinforces a clear market preference for high-quality, profitable platforms with durable margins, even as absolute multiples continue to normalize from peak levels.

After some up and down in the Top 10 Median throughout fall, the last 30 days have shown a flattening line, indicating that top tier valuations are under pressure. The gap between the Overall Median and Top 10 Median stopped materially changing.

The top 50 average saw another (slight) decline from previously 12.3x to 12.1x. The trend is in line with the Top 10 average and shows that companies are under pressure across the spectrum.

Below table shows the average and median EV / NTM revenue multiples by sector.