IPO Timing Keeps Slipping as Solari Capital Emerges

A new investment firm stepped out of stealth mode on September 25 with $350 million already deployed, and its founder is making a blunt argument: companies are staying private for far too long, and that is exactly where the opportunity sits. AJ Scaramucci runs Solari Capital, and he built it to bet on that gap.

Here is why this matters if you are building something right now. The old playbook said raise, grow, go public. That playbook is dead, and the data behind Solari’s bet proves it.

The Numbers Behind Staying Private

Companies used to reach IPO in about four years. Now it takes twelve to fifteen, according to IPO data tracked by University of Florida professor Jay Ritter. That is not a small shift. That is an entirely different career timeline for founders.

Read that table again. Thirty four tech listings in 2025 against two hundred five in 1995. Founders are not avoiding the public markets by accident. Something structural changed, and Solari built its entire fund around that change.

Who Is Backing the Bet

Scaramucci is not doing this alone, and the names behind him matter. Ron Conway, Jim Breyer, Bain Capital co-chairman Stephen Pagliuca, former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, and Peter Diamandis all back the fund.

Solari has already put money into xAI, Suno, Tessera Therapeutics, Varda Space, and Northwood Space, spreading across AI, biotech, and space in one portfolio. It also incubates companies directly, with health venture Radial Health as its flagship bet, and financial technology startup Architect Financial rounding out the early lineup.

Scaramucci calls his thesis “programmable reality.” The short version: rising computing power is starting to turn biology, intelligence, physical matter, and even money into things you can engineer the way you engineer software. Big words. Simple test: does the money follow the idea? So far, yes.

Why Founders Are Choosing to Wait

Staying private used to mean staying small. Not anymore. Mega funds like Solari now write the kind of checks that used to require a public offering, which means founders can keep control of their company for years longer than before.

Going public invites quarterly scrutiny, activist investors, and a stock price that reacts to headlines you cannot control. Founders who have lived through a public earnings call know how much energy that process pulls away from actually building the product. If a fund will hand you growth capital without that baggage, why would you rush? Read the recent tech IPO market coverage and you will see bankers themselves are unsure how much appetite is actually out there.

What This Means for Your Own IPO Timing

Stop planning your company around an IPO exit as the default. That mindset is outdated, and it will make you raise money the wrong way at the wrong stage.

Plan instead for a longer private runway, and build relationships with the kind of growth investors who fund that runway. The OpenAI valuation talks making headlines this year show just how large a company can grow while staying fully private.

Before you take a dollar of late-stage capital, get clear on what it costs you in control. Go back to basics and study Series A funding lessons from founders who negotiated hard on terms, because those same instincts apply at every later stage too.

Whether the Thesis Actually Holds

Watch whether Solari’s incubated companies, especially Radial Health, can prove the thesis with real results and not just headlines. A fund built on a bold idea still has to deliver outcomes.

Watch the IPO count too. If 2026 closes anywhere near the 2025 total of 34 tech listings, that confirms the shift is not temporary. It is the new normal, and you should build your plans around it now, not later. Founders who treat this as a permanent condition, not a phase to wait out, will raise smarter and hold onto more control.

FAQ: Staying Private Longer

Why are companies staying private for so much longer now?

Large growth funds and mega investors now provide the capital that used to require going public, so founders can raise significant money while keeping their company off the public markets.

Does staying private mean a company cannot access enough capital?

No. Firms like Solari Capital exist specifically to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars into private companies, matching or exceeding what many public offerings used to raise.

Should early-stage founders still plan around an eventual IPO?

Not as the default. Build your company assuming a longer private timeline, and treat an IPO as one possible outcome among several, not the finish line.