OpenAI IPO Delayed? Lime Bikes & the Biggest IPO Stories Explained

Key Takeaways

Hello and welcome back to the Market Maker podcast and this week we are talking all things IPO and for regular listeners we're going back to a favored structure five stories in five minutes each. Can't completely promise we'll stay true to that but we will do our best and this week is a great representation of why we all love finance so much the diversity of companies and the sheer range of new stories. You know we could go on for for a lot longer but we're going to start with Open AI. The rumored delays to its IPO and its plan to give a 5% equity stake to the US government. Next then we'll deep dive into AOL's owner Bending Spoons and their recent successful IPO. Next you've seen them on the streets of London I'm sure you might have even got nearly run down by one of these beasts but yes last week saw the IPO of Uber backed Lime bike. And what next well obviously we'll travel to Oman and look at the interesting fertilizer IPO only to end back in the UK with self-driving car company Wave filing for a share sale on LSE's new private market. So lots to cover. Let's dive straight in Stephen how are you? >> Yeah I'm pretty well I'm pretty well I mean it's been a it's been a good month all things podcast. I think I saw a post from you last week saying that it's been basically our top month ever in terms of downloads and listens and viewing hours and all of that kind of stuff. So I would give most of the credit to to SpaceX but obviously some credit to us as well. So again please do keep sharing this and liking this and doing all the good stuff. And and and and hyping it as well you mentioned that there's a hype function on YouTube and I've never heard of that. >> Oh yeah I don't know if anyone's ever used that. And I think it's one of those beta ones. I can't actually find it now. It appeared and disappeared. So, there was a hype function where I think they've got a hype like a trending hashtag type thing that's new. So, yeah, look. Shout out to everyone who listens. Uh I got stopped in the street 2 days ago. I texted you, Stephen. Um the guy was listening to us when he saw me and stopped me. And I was like, "Okay, this is getting a bit too weird now." >> [laughter] >> That's creepy. That's really creepy. Um well, it is less Yeah, it's certainly less embarrassing than when your phone actually accidentally turns on and it turns out you're listening to yourself on podcast. As you know, that's happened You know, my wife's like, "Why are you listening to yourself?" You know, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to get better. >> Growth mindset. I'm just trying to get better. My dad >> just like the sound of my own voice. >> No. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. Really does mean a lot. And as Stephen said, easiest way is to just drop it in your WhatsApp, share it. We'd love that. But look, let's let's dive in. Let's get into it. OpenAI first up on the docket. >> Yeah, absolutely. And we'll we'll get on to talk about their potentially delayed IPO and the idiosyncrasies around that. But I really wanted to discuss this headline which dropped on the FT, I think it was, last Thursday. The headline is that OpenAI has discussed giving 5% equity stake to the US government. Seeking somewhat to clear the obstacles, maybe securing some buy-in from the Trump administration. You know, these are These are high-level discussions, but you're thinking to yourself, OpenAI, potentially trillion-dollar company, why the heck is it even contemplating offering 5% a 5% equity stake to the US government? Has Has this ever been done before? Did Google do it? Did Amazon do it? Did Microsoft do it? Did Apple do it? The answer there is no. So, why does OpenAI think that it needs to sweeten or maybe even turn Trump's opinion of an OpenAI around by giving it a little bit of upside? Now, this is pretty high-level at the moment. We know that there have been some conversations between OpenAI and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Uh they've also spoken, by the way, to Bernie Sanders, our good mate Bernie. And Bernie's like, "Look, you know, 5% pish-posh, not enough. We want at least 50% of these types of companies to be in public hands, right?" So, what is going on here? The way that the way that Altman try is trying to position this, and it's all part of this like extremely strange San Francisco, you know, AI thruster uh analysis that there will be three or four companies that will basically own all of the productive capital in the world in a few years' time because AI is going to change the nature of work and the way that we do everything. So, if there are only three or four companies, and by the way, the nature of the technology and the spend and the economies of scale that you need means that there probably will be an OpenAI, an Anthropic, a Gemini, maybe one more. You know, these three or four companies, if they do what the San Francisco boosters think that they might do and take all of the economic value out of almost every other company, you talk about things like the SaaS-pocalypse and how, in theory, AI can just five code its way to a >> [laughter] >> a CRM platform or whatever it might be. If these things do create all of the value in the world, the public needs to get some of and then public needs to get their hands on some of the upside. So, this is kind of a weird dark arts Sam Altman giving with one hand taking with five or six other hands. It's such a confusing story. >> We're obviously into the the run into the midterms, not far off. So, is there some sort of sense of political timing here when it also helps Trump or you know he's going to be more It's going to be more well received it happening now than rather than later going into a political event like that? >> Yeah, it's such a it's such a good point and AI is such a weird thing, right? Because on the one hand it promises this great Cambrian explosion of productivity and economic growth and quite frankly has saved Trump's bacon from a you know from a minimal approval rating perspective cuz markets are going up or have been for the last year or so. But at the on the other side, the public hates AI, right? You know, the the negative sentiment towards AI, there's so many surveys that are coming out that saying, "Look, you know, everyone's using it, but no one really likes it and everyone's really worried about it." And that is feeding through into the political discourse. Trump, you know, he he's not so sure. And he's not so sure by the way because it's a threat to his omnipotence. >> [laughter] >> Um and it is another big beast that's getting a little bit more of the the headlines or the economic upside. But, you know, some slightly more sober-minded Republicans are starting to think, "Hey, wait a second. We we've replaced millions with billions with trillions, and it seems like the trillions are not going to the the person on the street. And the person on the street doesn't like this AI thing. So, you know, uh how are we going to how are we going to benefit from this? This can't all go into the the increasingly deep pockets of Sam Altman. This has got to go back to us in some way. >> So, how Sam come up with the 5%? Like, is there any type of precedent where it's like, yeah, we know Trump will will get the the impact that we need from having the administration back on board. So, 5% seems feels like the sweet spot. So, what's the science behind that? Is there any precedents where these types of approaches have happened before from private entities? >> Yeah, it's a really interesting one. I think I think to one extent the 5% has been plucked out of thin air. And actually, if Sam Sam Altman is truly worried about the economic impact, the total economic impact of AI, and he is really worried that his company is going to be part of that total economic impact, he should probably be thinking about 95%, right? You know, this thing should become a public good like the air that we breathe, right? But he's not thinking like that. He's thinking, all right, if I give Trump, or if I give the US 5%, it will make Trump feel like he is part of a good story. In exactly the same way, and this is the only comp that we have, the recent comp, in exactly the same way as Trump was badmouthing Intel, saying it's an absolute disaster, what a rubbish company, you know, my mother could manage it better, until the US took a 10% stake. And now he's all in on Intel, right? You [laughter] know, the man thinks with dollar signs. and you know say what you want it's it's it's transparent to the extent that you know how to get him and 5% of a trillion dollar company into the coffers of the US administration or the Trump administration it it will convince him that actually wait a second this AI thing ain't so bad and let's get another blockbuster IPO away which we think is probably going to happen in 2027. >> Yeah on that point then what was the rationale behind the delay? Was there any clarity or is it fairly superficial in information at this point? >> Yeah we're talking yeah as we're talking all things IPO I think you know the timing of this 5% news drop is interesting. All right you know this is all the lobbying game the positioning game to get this IPO away as quickly as possible and as successfully as possible with the one trillion dollar number. So we all kind of know that Sam Altman wants an IPO and he wants it to start or wants it to end with a trillion. He doesn't want it to be some meager 900 billion or something like that and it was a New York Times article that was reported a couple of weeks ago that said OpenAI was thinking about delaying its IPO to 2027. There was a the report did mention I was reading this report mentioned that Altman was a little bit spooked by the rocky performance of SpaceX. Now I don't know about you but any IPO that launches at $135 a share and 100 times price to revenue and then goes up and then settles at around $157 a share 107 times price to sales I don't think that's rocky that's unbelievable. >> [laughter] >> Well anything anything for a swipe on Elon he's up for it. >> Oh I know those two they should just get in a ring. Celebrities and >> you already had Zuckerberg and Musk. Do you remember few years back? Never actually quite materialize they did it. >> Yeah, it's an interesting one. Zuckerberg versus Musk versus Altman. I mean, you know that Altman will fight dirty. There's absolutely no way he's not going to be eye gouging. Let's be totally honest about it. >> [laughter] >> I back Zuck. He's looking pretty big these days, right? >> Until till Jeff walks in the room and then that's it. Bezos just wipes the table with all of these things. He is stacked. [laughter] >> Haymakers left and right. Anyway, yeah, so you know, all sorts of stuff going on with this this IPO. It looks like, you know, sorry, OpenAI is is just a bit of a basket case and you know, it's got a very complex ownership structure with the kind of a philanthropic piece as well. It's got a lot of baggage from a reputation perspective with with with Sam Altman being fired and then being rehired. He's done loads of what we might consider to be relatively circular investments. You know, investing in Nvidia, being invested in by Nvidia, etc. And we still don't really know what its business model is yet, right? So, they spoken a lot about advertising. That hasn't really kicked into gear. You remember that thing about Jony Ive? That kind of product thing. We're going to create the next generation of unbelievable AI driven product. You remember that? There's a little really kind of softly shot image of >> Yeah. >> Jony Ive and Sam Altman yeah, smiling into a camera. >> [laughter] >> That's come to nothing yet. So, you know, there's a lot of maybes and ifs and buts in the way that Anthropic is like, all right, you know, we tap into enterprise. We know what we're selling and how much we're selling it for. It's just not quite as clear. So, put the brakes on and wait until next year is what CFO Sarah Fry wants to do. Push on and go out for a trillion is what Sam Altman Sam Altman wants to do. And we'll see who ends up winning this one. Yep, drop us a comment. Who are you backing at this point? Uh I think it's probably uh lopsided, but I'd love to hear someone's bear case for Anthropic and bullish case for OpenAI. Uh if you have one. All right. Number two out of five, Bending Spoons, which I'm sure not many people have heard of. Can I just go back to the Can I just go back to the uh Anthropic versus OpenAI one for a second? You've reminded me of something. I was at Manchester University on Friday uh doing a session on leveraged buyouts and IPOs. Shout out to the guys that were in a very hot lecture theater. And at the end of the IPO session, I said, "Look, I'm going to give you 15 minutes. I'm going to give you four companies, Anthropic, OpenAI, Revolut, and Shein as potential IPO targets. I want you to rank them. And I want you to tell me why you rank them in a particular order." So, obviously, what everyone does on the end at the end of the day on a Friday is they all go on to ChatGPT. Put in the four companies and get ChatGPT to rank it. ChatGPT ranked OpenAI the least attractive IPO candidate out of the four. Well, there you go. It's It's an honesty box. It's uh Yeah, well, you at least you know the algorithm's working. >> [laughter] >> Anyway, sorry. I will continue Bending Spoons. So, you might have heard Well, Bending Spoons is probably a company that you wouldn't have heard of. You might have heard of the notion of bending spoons. It was the company named after a scene in The Matrix. If you uh if you remember those, you know, long leather jackets and cool shades. Um but Bending Spoons is company formed Well, it's headquartered in Milan. It's founded in 2013 by four college roommates and the story is that this company started in 2013 has IPO'd raising 1.68 billion dollars at a market capitalization of 18.6 billion dollars going at right at the top of their marketed IPO range 26 to 28 dollars a share and within the first day it jumped by almost 40% as of the time of this recording the market cap is up at 25 billion dollars for this company this tech company we can potentially call it a tech company bending spoons which had you ever heard of bending spoons before we before we went on to this >> other than the matrix no >> it's it's a weird one because it's it's this kind of interesting tech company and I'll speak about the business model in a second but it keeps an extremely low profile there's no like keynote speeches at Davos or tech conferences or anything like that so it can't be something good that they do that and they're trying to stay off the grid that's not a good sign that might be the case so bending spoons I'm going to say you know so the founder Luca Ferrari brilliant name told Bloomberg Businessweek that bending smooth bending spoons was like if private equity had a baby with Google so I don't know if that illuminates you or not but anyway so what it does is it buys it buys badly or under performing software companies with relatively high monthly active users or a relatively high customer loyalty and decent subscription levels basically goes and buys these companies like fires a bunch of people strips out a load of costs, increases the price and kind of skinnies it down to its most loyal users and almost kind of starts again. And it's done this with plenty of companies over the last 10 years. >> So so companies that people would have heard of or not? >> Yeah, so there's Yeah, there's some there's some pretty big ones in here. I mean, I mentioned you mentioned at the top of the episode AOL which people of my generation would have heard of. I didn't even know they were still around. But you might have heard of the likes of Vimeo, the video editing software, WeTransfer, Evernote, which was something that I used quite a lot back in the day. If anyone's a runner, Komoot. Eventbrite. So there's quite a lot of quite a lot of companies that you probably use in your day-to-day life that are owned by Bending Spoons. So it's got this kind of network of these underperforming, not particularly well-loved software companies. And as I was reading about it, the first company the first comp that came to mind, so I don't think it's a true private equity play. But maybe it is, but one of the one of the comps that really came to mind was Berkshire Hathaway. Specifically because these guys don't want to unlike private equity where you buy something, you improve it, and then you sell it, these guys have no desire to sell these companies. There's no mandate for them to sell these companies. They're just building up a stable of you know, well-known software subscription business companies and running them a little bit like Berkshire Hathaway runs their energy portfolio or their real estate portfolio. These are companies that they buy and they never ever want to sell. So it's more BH for for software than private equity. but it's a really interesting business model. >> How successful are they in that business model at the moment? Do we know? In terms of their ongoing numbers. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, they're growing growing relatively quickly. So, the company disclosed net income of only $28 million but on revenue of $601 million in the first 3 months alone of 2026 compared to a net loss of $112 million on on revenue of just $259 million this time last year. So, that is, you know, over double growth and it's moved from a net loss to a profit. And it's grown its monthly active users up to 500 million in March of this year from just 100 million in December of 2023. So, with three times growth in monthly paying users. So, this company is is kind of flying and it's a really interesting one just from a from a kind of analyst perspective or from an investor's perspective. You don't always need to go for the shiniest objects. I wouldn't suggest that the VC communities or the tech communities on the East Coast and the West Coast were getting particularly excited about Vimeo and Eventbrite and WeTransfer. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they are dead in the water businesses, right? They're just not the VC multi-trillion-dollar companies that everyone wants to talk about in the headlines. >> So, is it not the technology that you're paying for? It's the access to the the subscriber, the community. Is that where the value lies within some of these these communities, so to speak? >> Yeah, absolutely. It's all about I think the the key moat for these for Bending Spoons is the 500 million monthly active users and how these monthly active users are being monetized. We spoke last week previously on the podcast about Snap and how they've got loads of monthly active users but they don't know how to monetize them, right? And therefore their market capitalization is very low. But when you've got 500 million users across these relatively niche platforms where customer loyalty is quite high it is unlikely for example that if you pay for Komoot, the trail running trail app it's very unlikely that you're going to stop paying for it. It's very It's very unlikely because it's not that big a discretionary spend goes out automatically every single year and you're not going to stop becoming a runner after being enough of a runner to pay for Komoot for example. So So there's a stickiness there. There's also a kind of well, it's a subscription. You You probably forget that you're doing it and then suddenly 5 years have gone by etc. So yeah. I mean the four former college friends have all done pretty well out of it. So good for them. >> And fun fact what's the connection between the ongoing All England Club Wimbledon Championships happening at the moment and this company? >> Oh, yeah, that's a good one. So early investors in Bending Spoons and I don't know like in terms of ultimate dinner parties, I think at this would be up up there. Andre Agassi legend of the of the grass courts The Weeknd I don't think his actual name is The Weeknd, just so you know. And Ryan Reynolds have all invested in Bending Spoons. >> Ryan Reynolds seems to have his fingers in many pies, that guy. He's annoyingly handsome and rich and well well diversified in his portfolio. >> No, I just want to I just want to track his portfolio. Give me a little slice of that. Get me get me shadow trading off the back of Ryan Reynolds. He's doing something right. >> Yeah. All right. Well, let's move on and let's whip through these other three stories. So, coming over to really I guess Londoners will be very familiar with this Lime Bikes IPO. >> Yeah, this was a really interesting one. When I when I read about this IPO, I honestly didn't know that Lime Bike was an independent company. I thought it was owned by Uber. Now, it obviously has a very strong connection to Uber. So, Uber is a major investor. In fact, it owns over 20% of the company. And it invested, I think, back in 2020, 2021. And obviously in the UK, I'm sure that this is the same in foreign markets as well. You know, if I open my Uber app, it gives me the option of a car or some wheels, right? You know, and I can get a Lime Bike or I can get a scooter through my Uber app. So, that's why I thought that they were owned by Uber. But anyway, they're not. They're an independent company. They raised 174 million dollars in last week's IPO led by, you've guessed it, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. The company, which is actually called Neutron Holdings Inc., sold shares at $25, giving Lime a market value of 1.6 billion. Bearing in mind that it was valued at 510 million at its valuation in 2020. So, you know, a decent jump up, not stratospheric. You know, we talk about the fact that Anthropic's only five or six years old. Cursive got bought for 60 billion dollars and it's only four years four years old. So, this is a a wholly different type of business. Um and unlike the Bending Spoons IPO, this kind of priced at the midpoint of its marketed range. Marketed range during the book build was $24 to $26. Um, and it popped, but only 4% to $26 at the end of its first day of trading on Wednesday of last week. So, uh, I mean, would you invest in this thing? >> Well, I was going to ask you. I'm like, I don't get it. I don't I don't I don't I've never ridden a Lime bike in my life. I do not intend to ride a Lime bike uh, in my lifetime. I don't I don't understand where this business goes from here. I don't understand the valuation as it stands at the moment. And am I right as in it's is it loss-making? I mean, is this thing actually making money? Like, how I don't understand how this is an investment opportunity for anyone. >> I've got Yeah, I've got a lot of comments on that. I mean, first, you get yourself on a Lime bike for one reason and one reason only. It's got a little electric motor, so you can bomb past like Croc-raddled like Croc-raddled Will de Lucys on their way home from the office. That's our our our erstwhile CEO. Um, >> [laughter] >> so you go really, really fast and it's quite fun because you don't have to work too hard. So, I love Lime bikes and I think they're great, but every time I use them, I think to myself, my god, this is a hard business. Right? You've got all of these heavy, clunky, physical bikes that cost a lot of money, that people love to trash or abuse. >> [laughter] >> Abuse. You know, they all have to get picked up at the end of at the end of the day, or a lot of them do anyway, by employees with big vans and taken to central locations where they can go and do the whole thing again, so that there's enough coverage within a city. Now, you know, we're used to, you know, relatively asset-light businesses that we like talking about, fast growth, or we like talking about businesses that have got a great structural advantage or absolutely winning business model. This one, you know, I mean, its revenue's up at $900 million, you know, so it's only being valued at 1.8 times its revenue, but it's only growing its revenue by about 20%, and it's never made a profit. So, you know, what does it have to do to make a profit? Because I don't know if there's that many more kind of economies of scale that you can squeeze out of this thing. I don't know how much more they can increase their prices, cuz LimeBike's already pretty expensive. So, I don't know where this thing's going to generate a profit. >> And I feel like the whole biking thing, I think there's a very attentive audience that you tap, like your very enthusiast who acclimatized to that that way of travel quickly. I think converting someone like me, I just I just I just don't know how they'll do that. >> No, unless you make it unless you make it much cheaper, and then you your margins get worse. >> Yeah, unless they make it an Uber and you can ride in the back and it's absolutely lovely. >> [laughter] >> You can sling the bike, clip it onto the back of the Uber. Okay, yeah, fine. Air-conditioned, lovely. >> Maybe maybe they should do the kind of LimeBike sidecar that you can just you can get a little sidecar and I'll >> I'll cycle >> I'll cycle it along. >> Do a podcast. As long as it has some like, you know, World War II pilot goggles that I can slip on, sit in the sidecar. Now now it sounds interesting. >> Uh >> Now we're talking. Now it's a business. But yeah, I mean, look, there's got to be something to it, and it and it's it's in 230 cities across five continents with 3.8 million monthly active users. You know, it's it's a it's a chunky business, but it's just not one that I can I can get on board with. Bending Spoons, I mean, it's a bit grim, you know, they they went in, bought Evite, and then fired 50% of the people on day one. But, you can kind of understand where they're going with the business model. Maybe not so much LimeBike. >> Right. Well, LimeBike users, let let us know. Users or non-users, let drop us a comment. Uh let us know what you think. Maybe we're missing something here. Okay, next one. Let's talk about Oman and the difference between some terminology that I guess most people don't traditionally come across, but I think it's super interesting. Frontier versus emerging markets. So, what's this IPO specifically to to Would it fit within that narrative? >> Yeah, I'm picking this story because, yeah, why not? I love You know, this is what we said at the top of the episode. We're going to go from Bending Spoons, a kind of if private equity had a baby with Google, through to LimeBikes, and you get run over on the streets of London, through to the Oman India fertilizer company. And it is it's about IPO. It's drawn over 12 billion dollars in orders, 18 times over subscribed, the largest Middle East IPO since the outbreak of the conflict, and set to raise, you know, north of 650 million dollars at a valuation of close to 3 billion dollars. So, this is, you know, this is a biggish IPO on a stock market that you probably you probably never heard of, and you've certainly never invested in, unless I'm unless I'm kind of belittling your adventurousness from an investment perspective. So, they are listing on the Muscat Exchange. So, capital of Oman is Muscat. And Oman is is doing pretty well. It's got good natural energy, natural resources, and it's managed to stay clear of this conflict. It's got a, you know, a trade route that's not the Strait of Hormuz. There's a lot going for Oman at the moment. Uh and obviously this fertilizer company's benefiting from the the elevated fertilizer prices. But, the Muscat Exchange is what we call or what is called a frontier market. Now, a frontier market or a frontier stock exchange is basically a really, really small, very, very thinly traded, very, very few large companies stock exchange that doesn't get the attention, but the love or the money or the inflows of an emerging markets exchange. So, you've got your frontier markets, you've got your emerging markets, you've got your developed markets. Emerging markets, they are going to attract the index money from the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, right? Or the FTSE Emerging Markets Index. And these are huge, very well tracked index ETF investments. If you're a frontier market like the Muscat Exchange, you're not get you're not going to get any of these inflows cuz it's just too small. So, one of Oman's strategies, it's Oman's Vision 2040, is to go from being an emerging market to being a front So, go from being a frontier market to an emerging market like the Saudi Exchange, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. But in order to do that, you need a few big IPOs. You need a few you need at least three kind of mid to large caps propping up this exchange, right? So, it's been encouraging some of the state-owned companies. It's been encouraging some family-owned companies, companies backed by sovereign wealth, to go, all right, you know, go from being private, float on the Muscat Exchange, put 25% free float out there, and if we get a few more of these, and they're deemed to be quite exciting, attractive companies, you know, as the Oman India Fertilizer Company actually is, we're going to start getting decent average daily trading volume, it start is going to start becoming more of an emerging exchange than a frontier market exchange. And that's where they want to get to because suddenly the spigot's open and the inflows come in, and you start to benefit from that, you know, that passive money flowing in. >> Would there be I was just trying to have a quick look if there's any press releases around this deal. Who are the advisors on this? And like you said, there's other regional context where some others have trodden this path before. So, would there be specialist teams that would be right on all over this in terms of the regional knowledge, regulation, timing, context, all that good stuff? >> Yeah, it's an interesting one. I I couldn't find the advisors. I don't know I don't know if you if if you have in your brief kind of in your brief analysis. I couldn't advise in I couldn't find the advisors. I can imagine that it will be a combination of regional players, but also the major banks involved as well. And the reason why the major banks are involved is this thing is 18 times oversubscribed, and it's trying to raise $680 million. So, that is, you know, that's a significant amount of money to be committed or subscribed into this IPO. And therefore, you're going to need some of the big guys. And we've spoken previously about how, you know, the J.P. Morgans and the Goldman Sachs's of this world have planted their flags in different bases around the Middle East and they probably don't have a major office yet in Amman, but they do in Jeddah and they do in Dubai so that they can just take a short flight over and go, "Hey, you know, you guys are trying to get more sophisticated, you're trying to bring quite a few of these to these types of companies to market, you know, we're going to be all over this because we think it's very exciting." >> You're right. Bank of Muscat and SocGen. >> There you go. >> Yeah. >> Local, international. SocGen's an interesting one though, isn't it? Um I I wouldn't have predicted that, but obviously they're making a bit of a play in that in that kind of uh in that country. >> All right. Our final story then that we have here is Wave files for a share sale on the LSE's new private market and you know, we've talked a lot about the London Stock Exchange and how it's been performing and all our conversations so far has been in IPOs. This says new private market, so what are we talking about here? >> Well, this is a company called Wave Technology. I don't know, have you ever seen one of these cars cruising around London? They're pretty cool. >> Uh I did see I think I did actually and it was the one with all like the like a like a literal airplane satellite type dish on the top of it that's cameras. Yeah, I have seen one. >> yeah, loads of gobbins. Uh >> [laughter] >> So, they're one of the one of the UK's great tech success success stories. They they're valued at 8.6 billion dollars in a in their latest February funding round. They're really impressive company and they're partnering with Uber to launch a bunch of autonomous taxis around London and you think to yourself, well, that's all well and good in San Francisco or in Austin, Texas. But London A, we're a little bit behind the times sometimes. Uh B, we have, you know, a lot of black cab drivers that probably don't want autonomous cars. And C, you've got the likes of me running around, you know, cycling around on a Lime bike, going the wrong way down one-way streets. >> [laughter] >> And there's a lot more hazard in London, I would I would I would dare to suggest than maybe the straighter roads of of an Austin, Texas. But anyway, >> Yeah, my lack of passion for Lime bikes, just to justify, is to keep the the thriving history of the black cabbie alive. >> Very good. Very good. Absolutely. Um So, yeah, so this company, Wave Technology, the reason why it's an interesting story is they're not looking at IPOing. They don't have any IPO IPO plans. They're not thinking about, even if they were, they probably wouldn't be thinking about the London Stock Exchange. This is a cool, interesting, highly valued tech company. It's probably looking at the Nasdaq, realistically. So, what are they doing here in the UK? The London Stock Exchange, they realize, I think, that there's a couple of things happening. Firstly, there's not a lot of new listings going on on the LSE. A painfully small amount of IPOs are happening here in the UK. And the stock market is generally in a has been in a a bit of a kind of liquidity funk for quite a long time. Another thing that's happened is that companies stay private for longer. And we've mentioned previously on the podcast this kind of growth in the secondary market for private company share sales. And this is happening because early employees, early investors want a little bit of liquidity, want to sell some of their shares, knowing that the IPO might might two or three or four or five years away still. So, what Wave is doing is it's taking advantage of a new product that's created by the London Stock Exchange called the private securities market. What happens is there will be an auction for a share sale, not not a new share creation, but a share sale of existing employee shares on the 8th of July that will be that will go out to interested private markets secondaries investors. This is not like public markets. You're not going to be able to see a ticker and a share price go up and down, but it's almost a little bit like a halfway house. You've got, you know, some of the elements of a public market in terms of that auction IPO style auction, but you also have the um the privacy of not having to, you know, do a full IPO. So, it's a really interesting one. >> And there's a Am I right in that there's a bit of a link then between uh yourselves and this story? >> Well, I was I was doing a bit of research on this and so the LSE's private securities market is based off of this thing called the private intermittent securities and capital exchange >> Oh sister. My god. >> PISCES. Try say >> after the England Mexico game at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. >> Um the world's first regulated private stock market, which again to me seems a little bit like an oxymoron. Anyway, I was trying to think, you know, has anyone done anything on the private securities market before this um Wave transaction? And the only company that has sold shares through this private securities market is an investment firm called Oxford Sciences Enterprise. Now, Oxford Sciences Enterprise is the venture fund that invests in spin-outs and technologies coming out of Oxford. Um and they actually invested in the company that I founded, Utl, back in 2018. So, I was very interested to see that these guys are, you know, getting a little bit of, I don't know, upside off the table through through the private security market. I'll have a chat. I'll see whether it's been successful. Who knows? >> To close on this, then, is this going to be a savior for London, or is this just a a small thing that's happening just to make opportunity out of it? >> Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think, you know, ask the CEO of the LSE, Julia Hoggett, and she'll say, "Yes, this is it. This is the thing. We're going to be a world leader in this kind of private stock market thing." It would be great if it if it was a success story, right? It would be great if this thing was massively oversubscribed, the process was super slick and super easy, and you never know, you might even get more companies doing it. But, is it going to put a dent in the hole made from a lack of IPOs and new listings? Probably not. Let's follow it. Let's see what happens. >> Yeah. Come on. Come on, LSE. England wins the World Cup. It's all happy days. >> Yeah, I would say I'd probably rather England won the World Cup than the private securities market turns out to be a relatively successful. But, you know, both good things. >> All right. Well, look, as we said through the the conversation, hit us up with your thoughts. We want a bull case for Open AI, bear case for Anthropic, just to change it up a little bit and go against the general consensus. And then also, your thoughts on the the business case if you were pitching Linebiker as an advisor. Convince us. >> [laughter] >> All right, Stephen, thank you so much and uh catch you next week. >> Yeah, thanks, Ed.