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👇

The dominant macro story of April is Iran war. And oil. Brent peaked at $115/barrel on April 6, the highest since the Iran war began, before Iran's foreign minister declared the Strait of Hormuz open for commercial vessels on April 17.

Crude plunged 11.4% in a single session to $83.85, and the S&P 500 hit record highs the same day, closing with a 4.5% weekly gain.

The divergence is the real April story. Oil more than doubled, US gas crossed $4/gallon for the first time since 2022, the US Navy blockaded Iranian ports, and public and private markets hit new highs through all of it.

Part of the reason is that the market is pricing in a resolution faster than the diplomacy actually suggests. Ship traffic through the strait remains well below pre-war levels, and the blockade is still in effect.

The other part is AI. Mega-cap AI valuations have decoupled from the rest of the private market, setting new records regardless of macro conditions.

Against that backdrop, here is where the private mega-cap market stands.

The top of the table tells an AI concentration story that has only intensified since March.

OpenAI's secondary market valuation sits at $950B, reflecting the closing of its record $122B primary round at an $852B post-money valuation on March 31, plus continued premium from secondary buyers. At $2B in monthly revenue and 910M weekly active users as of February, the multiple remains steep but the growth trajectory keeps pulling investors forward.

Anthropic is the more interesting valuation story. Its formal mark sits at $380B from the $30B Series G closed in February. Bloomberg reported on April 14 that investors have offered $800B+ for a new round, which Anthropic has so far resisted.

The trigger is revenue. Anthropic's annualized revenue reportedly reached $30B by end of March, up from $9B at end of 2025, a 1,400% year-over-year growth rate. Secondary market investors are now pricing Anthropic at a premium to OpenAI for the first time.

SpaceX holds at #2 at $800B, Tether at #3 at $500B, ByteDance at #5 at $330B, and xAI at #6 at $230B round out the top six.

Below that, Ant Group at #7 ($210B), Stripe at #8 ($159B, unchanged), Databricks at #9 ($134B), and Waymo at #10 ($126B) complete the list. Non-AI composition is stable, with Stripe's February-to-March rerating from $107B to $159B now locked in as the new baseline rather than a one-month anomaly.

Four of the top six names are AI-first. The combined valuation of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and ByteDance has more than doubled since the start of 2025, pulling the composition of the top 10 into a two-tier structure: AI mega-caps, then everyone else.

Here’s our 2026 IPO list based on rumours, plans, and status quo of their operations:

Zero companies from our list have completed a public listing in the past month. But the IPO picture shifted materially in one place.

SpaceX filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC on April 1, 2026, targeting a June/July listing at a post-IPO valuation of approximately $1.5-1.75 trillion. This would be the largest IPO in history by a wide margin, eclipsing Saudi Aramco's 2019 record of $25.6B. The full prospectus is expected to become public in late April or early May.

The rest of the list has not moved. OpenAI has hired its first head of investor relations, Cynthia Gaylor (former CFO of DocuSign), consistent with an H2 2026 filing and a 2027 listing at up to $1T. Anthropic has reportedly held early conversations with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for a similar timeline.

Beyond our top 50, two names outside the list are worth flagging. X-Energy publicly filed its S-1 in March (listing on Nasdaq under "XE"), targeting the AI-driven nuclear capacity buildout, and Cerebras publicly filed its S-1 on April 17 targeting a May listing at $35B+.

The paradox holds. Public market conditions are strong on the surface, but only a single name from the top tier has committed to the window. Before theorizing further, let's move on to the second path for liquidity.State of M&A

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

M&A activity remains robust.

Q1 2026 closed with over $1T in announced transaction value across the market, extending the mega-deal trajectory from Q4 2025. The pattern has carried into April, with Unilever's foods unit sale to McCormick at $44.8B as the single largest deal of the month and multiple $5-30B transactions across consumer, insurance, and biotech.

At the trend level, the story from March continues. Transaction count is tracking slightly above 2025's pace, deal volume is running nearly 2x YoY, and the average deal size remains structurally elevated versus the 2025 baseline.

The shift toward fewer, bigger deals is now three quarters old and looks structural rather than cyclical.

This month's top 10 reflects a broader sector mix than March. Unilever's foods unit to McCormick at $44.8B leads at 3.6x EV/Revenue and 13.8x EV/EBITDA, consistent with consumer staples valuations.

Restaurant Depot to Sysco at $29B and Corebridge Financial to Equitable Holdings at $22B complete the top three, with distribution and insurance joining the large-deal mix.

Biotech and life sciences dominate the mid-tier. Terns Pharma to Merck ($6.75B), Centessa Pharma to Eli Lilly ($6.3B), and Apellis Pharma to Biogen ($5.6B) account for three of the top ten, continuing the pattern of strategic buyers paying premium multiples for clinical-stage assets.

The top 10 median EV sits at $6,525M with a median EV/Revenue of 5.6x and EV/EBITDA of 13.9x. The overall 30-day median of $201M at 2.9x EV/Revenue is a meaningful uplift from March's $72M at 1.6x, confirming that M&A has broadened from mega-deal concentration into the middle market.

Sorted by EV/Revenue, Globalstar to Amazon at 42.0x is the highest multiple deal of the month, reflecting Amazon's strategic premium on satellite communications infrastructure for its Kuiper network. Moonton to Savvy Games Group at 26.1x follows, with the Saudi gaming consolidator continuing its mobile gaming acquisition strategy.

Soleno Therapeutics to Neurocrine at 15.0x and CoolIT Systems to Ecolab at 8.6x (also in the top 10 by EV at 29.0x EV/EBITDA, reflecting the strategic value of liquid cooling infrastructure for data centers) round out the premium-multiple deals.

The top 10 by EV/Revenue median sits at 6.7x with a median deal size of $4,675M, well above March's $776M median at the same cut. What's new in April is the broadening of the middle market, with the overall 30-day median stepping up to 2.9x while premium outliers moderated from March's extremes.

Despite the macro uncertainty throughout the past few weeks, the sharpest phase of the correction may be ending. The average continued to compress, but the median stabilized.

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.

The Top 10 average EV/NTM revenue declined from 17.0x in March to 16.1x in April, continuing a gradual compression. The median held at 13.8x (vs 13.6x in March), confirming the floor we flagged last month.

The overall median slipped slightly from 2.4x in March to 2.2x in April, consistent with the long-term 2-3x band that has held since 2022.

Palantir remains #1 at 38.3x, continuing a steady compression from 50x in February and 43.1x in March. Its growth (54%), EBITDA margin (58%), and gross margin (85%) remain best-in-class, but even Palantir is giving back multiple as the market rerates.

Cloudflare at 21.4x, AppLovin at 16.3x, CrowdStrike at 15.8x, and VeriSign at 14.8x hold the next four positions. Palo Alto Networks at 9.9x enters the top 10 this month, with SoundHound at 10.9x and Shopify at 9.2x rounding out the list.

At the index level, Top 10 average EBITDA margin improved to 41% (vs 37% in March), while average growth held at 26% (vs 25% last month). Companies are being rewarded for profitability improvement even as absolute multiples compress.

Below is the EV/NTM Revenue trendline, the top 50 list, the multiples split by sector, and the surprising efficiency benchmarks 👇