The Fundrise venture capital product, VCX, listed on the NYSE on Thursday, March 19, 2026, to remarkable success. It had a NAV of about $19 a share, opened at around $42, briefly rocketed to $125, then closed the day at $76. That is roughly a 300% premium to NAV and far beyond what I thought it would trade at.
I had estimated a 30% chance it could trade at a 50%+ premium to NAV, a 50% chance it would trade at a 10% discount to 10% premium to NAV, and a 20% chance of a 20% discount. With the war in Iran, higher oil prices, a declining S&P 500, and the Robinhood Venture Fund I (RVI) trading poorly its first week of listing, my expectations were tempered.
So I thought it would be worth discussing why VCX performed far beyond my expectations, and I suspect beyond most investors’ expectations as well.
As a reminder, Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Financial Samurai and I am personally invested in Fundrise products. Please do your own due diligence and invest only with money you can afford to lose.
Stay Humble, Please
Before we get into the reasons behind VCX’s strength, it is worth saying clearly: stay humble.
There is a six-month lockup on restricted shares, meaning most investors cannot sell until mid-September. It is extremely easy to look at your restricted share balance on Computershare and start celebrating. You might even decide to go buy things you do not need before you can actually sell. Please do not.
Personally, I caught myself daydreaming of buying a new car to replace my almost 11-year-old one. But then I reminded myself I had just spent ~$1,700 fixing it and another $1,080 on two new rear tires. So I shelved the idea.
The only money you should consider spending are profits from any unrestricted shares you purchased right before the listing. So if you bought $10,000 worth at $19 and sold everything at $100 a share, then yes, you can spend that $42,000 in profit, minus your effective short-term capital gains tax rate, which could run as high as 40% when you include state taxes.
Don’t Spend Before You Have Liquidity
As a San Francisco resident since 2001, I have watched startup friends and acquaintances exercise stock options at peak prices and hold the shares, expecting them to climb further. When the stock collapsed, the paper gain that triggered their tax bill had evaporated, but the IRS still wanted its money. Some ended up owing more to the government than their shares were worth. They did not profit from the IPO. They paid for it.
Finally, do not brag about your VCX returns to anyone. Despite Financial Samurai being around since 2009, only a tiny minority of people read this site or any other personal finance publication that discusses venture capital. With the S&P 500 declining YTD, inflation picking back up, and layoffs increasing, nobody wants to hear how you made a big return on an investment they are only now learning exists.
Nothing good comes from sharing outsized returns. People will be upset you did not give them a heads up. Some will be envious. Others will pester you with their own investment ideas. Keep it to yourself.
Instead, consider doing something completely counter to what a large windfall might tempt you toward. Get on your hands and knees and scrub every toilet and sink in your house. It is hard to feel like a genius with a toilet brush in your hand, and that is exactly the point.
Why Fundrise VCX Outperformed Expectations
Here are the main reasons I can identify.
The Direct Listing Created Organic, Stickier Demand
Fundrise rewarded some long-time investors in the venture product by giving them the ability to purchase up to $10,000 worth of unrestricted shares, roughly 526 shares, before the listing. As long-time investors, we are far more inclined to hold and far less inclined to flip compared to the typical IPO retail or institutional investor who is brand new to the name. That said, selling some shares at this kind of premium is also entirely warranted.
I am not sure what the median VCX balance was pre-listing. However, for those who were able to buy up to $10,000 worth of shares, I suspect it amounted to far less than 50% of an investors total holdings, which may have further reduced the urgency to sell immediately.
The other option was to do a traditional Initial Public Offering, bringing in new retail investors and institutional investors who may not know the product as well, and who may be more inclined to flip
The Fear and Enthusiasm Around AI Is Greater Than Most People Realize
Since early 2022, I have been making the case on Financial Samurai that my number one way to hedge against AI disrupting my children’s future is to invest in the very private AI companies that could displace millions of jobs. That is why I started investing in public tech companies with AI exposure, and then began adding to VCX in 2023.
As Anthropic began crushing large industries like SaaS with new products, the fear that Anthropic and OpenAI would wipe out more industries and eliminate millions of knowledge worker jobs only intensified. Capital naturally found its way to VCX.
Fundrise Has a Long Track Record of Innovation and Trust
Fundrise was founded in 2012, originally offering access to commercial real estate investments that were once only available to ultra high net worth individuals and institutions. Once you have a track record spanning more than a decade, you build a meaningful level of trust with investors, especially in the alternative investment space. Listing on the New York Stock Exchange only amplifies that reputation further.
Great Timing and Investment Judgment
Fundrise launched the venture fund in 2022, when private company valuations had fallen sharply off the cliff of 2020 and 2021 exuberance. The ability to identify demand, raise capital, and deploy at an opportune moment reflects real business and investment acumen.
In the beginning, there was significant skepticism from traditional venture capital firms, potential limited partners, and other fund managers. Ben Miller and the team nonetheless identified and invested in some of the top private growth companies in America.
In venture capital, getting access to the cap table of the best companies is sometimes harder than identifying them in the first place. By investing in names like Databricks early, Fundrise demonstrated genuine capability on both fronts.
Fundrise Can Provide Tremendous Value To Private Companies
Unlike traditional venture capital firms, Fundrise comes with hundreds of thousands of investors and a large subscriber base. That means Fundrise can make an immediate impact on awareness, marketing, and client acquisition for the companies they back.
A good example is the partnership with Ramp, the corporate card company, which I discussed in a podcast episode with Ben, the CEO. By highlighting that collaboration, Fundrise helped onboard a meaningful number of new customers directly. And given Fundrise’s deep roots in real estate, it can add similar value to any real estate technology companies in the portfolio.
A Large Embedded Investor Base Spread the Word
A traditional venture capital fund is capped at 250 investors by SEC rules. Fundrise had around 100,000 before listing. That is a massive difference that can help amplify awareness of VCX.
Some of those 100,000 investors include people like me, with relatively large platforms and a long track record of writing about investing and personal finance. I launched Financial Samurai in July 2009 and have published over 2,500 posts. More than 100 million people have read this site over the years.
Once Fundrise made the surprise announcement that they were listing on the NYSE, I spent roughly 20 hours over the following month analyzing the situation and publishing four detailed posts on the topic. Here is my first one after the listing announcement, called What Fundrise’s Venture Product Listing Means For Investors.
Thousands of existing and new readers worked through that analysis and made more informed decisions about the venture product as a result. And I am just one person.
Surely among 100,000 investors, there are others with platforms of their own. If every one of those 100,000 investors told just three people, that is 300,000 additional people aware of and potentially able to participate in VCX.
Management Made the Right Call by Delaying
In my post on the value of having position, I wrote that Fundrise made the right decision by delaying the listing from as early as March 9 to March 19. The week of March 9 began the Monday after the surprise bombing of Iran, with oil prices shooting past $120 over the weekend and maximum uncertainty in the markets.
Even though conditions were still turbulent by March 19, waiting until the initial shock had been absorbed likely contributed to stronger investor appetite.
With closed-end funds, management judgment matters far more to performance than it does with an index fund or open-ended mutual fund. The decision to delay may have also signaled to investors that this management team will make thoughtful calls when turbulence hits next time. That kind of trust compounds.
Good Luck Is Always A Factor
When it comes to far surpassing expectations, luck certainly plays a role. Let us be honest about that. I’ve argued in the past that outsized wealth is mainly due to luck. There are plenty of smart and hardworking people. But not every one of them is successful at their craft or wealthy
Initially, when the Department of War terminated Anthropic’s contract on a Friday night, March 6, it felt worrisome. It was a $200 million contract that could have led to hundreds of millions more. But as I wrote in my newsletter at the time, bad press often generates far more awareness than expected.
What followed was remarkable. Anthropic became the number one downloaded app for about 10 days straight. People who had never heard of Claude, Anthropic’s product, suddenly discovered it. People who were uncomfortable with potentially being tracked or opposed to the current administration signed up in large numbers.
Anthropic’s revenue run rate took a multibillion-dollar jump almost overnight. And because Anthropic is the number one position in VCX, VCX benefited enormously. How lucky is that? We’re not talking about a 5% weighting, but a ~20% weighting.
Then An Unfortunate War Broke Out
Meanwhile, OpenAI continued to grow as well. If having the two leading AI companies during the biggest news cycle of the year was not enough, VCX also owned Anduril as a top five holding.
Anduril makes AI-powered defensive drones and equipment for combat. After Anduril won a contract worth up to $20 billion and raised a new funding round at a $60 billion valuation, it may be the most important defense company to own right now. Look no further than what the drone company, Swarmer (SWMR), did after it went public.
If I could pick five mid-to-late-stage private companies to anchor my top holdings, I am not sure I could construct anything better than what VCX currently owns.
Low Fees That Democratize Access
Traditional venture capital funds charge a 2% management fee plus 20% carried interest. Some of the top-tier funds charge 3% management fees and 35% carry. That, to me, is too much.
So when any investor, not just accredited investors, can access a fund holding some of the most promising private companies in America for only a 1.85% fee and no carry, that becomes doubly attractive.
When a fund holds companies that are already publicly traded and accessible to anyone, paying carry is a tough pill to swallow since we can just buy those publicly-traded companies ourselves directly. Pershing Square Holdings is a useful comparison here where I wrote a deep-dive into why it trades at a meaningful discount to NAV.
International Demand May Just Be Waking Up
For nearly three years, I fielded questions from international readers of Financial Samurai asking whether they could invest in the Fundrise’s products. The answer was always unfortunately no, even if you were from Canada. And I never had a good equivalent to point them toward.
Now that VCX is publicly listed on the NYSE, any international investor can buy a share. The international demand curve for this kind of product could represent billions of dollars, and that demand has barely begun to show up because so few people know about VCX still.
My Expectations Are Always Low
Finally, VCX far surpassed my expectations partly because after 30 years of investing, I have seen just about everything. From the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, to the 2000 dotcom crash, to the 2008 global financial crisis, experience has a way of leaving scars.
Just when I thought I could not lose, I lost a boatload. And when something felt like a sure thing, a completely random exogenous event like COVID came out of nowhere and wiped out entire industries overnight.
As a result, I stay conservative with my expectations. If you invest long enough, anything can and will happen. The upside surprises feel sweeter precisely because you never take them for granted.
What Comes Next For VCX
Given that most shares are locked up until September 19, 2026, speculating about where VCX trades from here is not especially useful. If you must speculate, it’s always good to be conservative so you have a greater chance of being surprised on the upside.
What I do believe is that the underlying NAV will continue to grow as I see AI as a decade long investing trend. And one of my key investing strategies is to recognize a trend, and invest in it for as long as possible.
The key variable is how much the share price trades at a premium or discount to NAV over time. Gravity tends to push premiums toward NAV. That said, with the scarcity of supply and the amount of growing demand, the premium could remain elevated for a while. Just look at how some stocks like AMC and GameStop traded during the pandemic.
However, if key holdings like OpenAI go public, the scarcity value of owning them through VCX diminishes, and the premium would logically compress.
So the real question is whether the Fundrise investment team can continue to identify and invest in the next generation of breakout private companies the way they identified many of their current holdings. Based on their track record and the value-added component they bring, I believe the answer is yes.
Taking Leaps of Faith
Investing is a constant battle between courage and faith. You can do all the due diligence in the world and still lose. But every once in a while, you pipe a 250-yard three-wood off the fairway and reach a long par 5 in two. And when you do it as a high handicapper, you are more shocked than anything. That is exactly how I feel right now.
I am deeply grateful to Ben Miller, Russell Tischler, Kendall Davis, and the entire Fundrise team for having the determination to keep building through genuinely difficult times once the Fed began aggressively hiking rates in 2022. Being able to democratize access to venture capital for everyday investors is an incredible accomplishment. Thank you for supporting this site all these years.
As for what I am going to do with my liquidity, the answer for now is not much. When a windfall arrives, I like to sit on it for at least a month before spending or investing it. This helps ensure I don’t do anything foolish.
What I do know is that I will take my parents out for a great dinner when I visit them in Honolulu, and my wife out here in San Francisco. Then I’ll treat my in-laws to something too. Beyond that, I am going to sit in the moment and simply be thankful that everything worked out. Because goodness knows, it often does not.
Readers, how are you feeling about VCX? Why do you think it has outperformed expectations so dramatically? Have you ever identified an investment idea, put significant capital to work, and had it actually pan out even better than planned? If so, what was the investment and what did you do with the proceeds?
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