After a three-year drought, the IPO window is reopening. The market that has returned rewards profitability, strong NRR, and clean capital structures — not growth at any cost. What founders need to know now.

Every VC is now an AI fund. Every pitch deck references AI. The contrarian founder — building seriously in categories the market is ignoring — has structural advantages that the current hype cycle obscures.

Seed-stage valuations have risen sharply, AI is crowding out everything else, and warm introductions still dominate deal flow. First-time founders without established networks face a structurally harder fundraising environment.

AI companies are commanding 20–30x revenue multiples. Some are justified by genuine moats and market scale. Many are not. Distinguishing between the two is the most consequential investment question in technology right now.

OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation. Sovereign wealth funds are writing cheques that traditional VC cannot match. For the next generation of founders, the implications are not straightforward.

Trade disruption, pandemic-era supply failures, and geopolitical fragmentation have made local-for-local manufacturing a strategic priority. Understanding what sovereignty investment actually costs — and delivers — is now essential.

The Strait of Hormuz carries 20% of global oil and all of Qatar’s LNG. Iran’s April 2026 tanker seizure pushed Brent above $105. The risk is permanent — and most businesses aren’t managing it.

The Taiwan Strait carries 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductor production past a credible military threat. Every manufacturer has exposure to what happens there — most don’t yet manage it explicitly.

India is being positioned as the world’s next manufacturing hub. The headline narrative is bullish. The granular reality — on infrastructure, skills, and regulation — is more complicated. A hard look.