SpaceX, Unitree, Anthropic: Is the wave of AI-driven IPOs overvalued?

[SINGAPORE] A growing wave of hyperhyped tech listings is prompting investors to assess whether current valuations are supported by economic fundamentals driven by speculative hype.

Recent high-profile debuts such as US giant SpaceX and anticipated filings from generative artificial intelligence pioneers OpenAI and Anthropic highlight this trend. The rapid increase in the number of listings of humanoid robots, including China’s Unitree Robotics, further highlights this phenomenon.

But Swissquote’s Ipek Ozkardeskaya said over-speculation was “becoming impossible to ignore”.

The senior analyst warned that technology valuations have become disconnected from concrete financial metrics, adding that prices no longer reflect actual metrics such as sales, revenue, earnings and profits, or future prospects.

Conversely, some observers believe the market remains well-positioned to absorb a wave of new listings. Although individual company valuations may appear to be rising, Lombard Odier argued on June 16 that strong corporate earnings and a resilient macroeconomic backdrop continue to support stock prices.

business times Find out what analysts are saying about current and upcoming initial public offering headliners.

space x

Manulife Investment Management said in a June 18 note that SpaceX, which went public on June 12, has emerged as a key “tactical risk-on catalyst”, encouraging investors to invest in riskier assets such as U.S. growth stocks and AI-related stocks.

Elon Musk’s space economy and AI company’s $75 billion IPO was more than four times oversubscribed.

Investors are excited about the prospect. The company’s Starlink division pioneered the satellite internet services market, and its Falcon 9 rocket also dominates the commercial space launch industry.

The company recently agreed to provide computing power to Anthropic and Alphabet’s Google, and acquired AI-powered coding platform Cursor.

As of June 22, the company is the sixth largest publicly traded company in the United States, just below Microsoft and Amazon, thanks to its rapid stock price rise.

However, the counter lost over S$600 billion in market value in three days. On Tuesday (June 23), SpaceX stock fell for the third straight day, dropping 16% to close at $154.60, after the company announced it would sell investment-grade corporate bonds for the first time.

Despite the decline, the company’s market capitalization still exceeds $2 trillion.

Its rapid rise has drawn scrutiny over its fiscal sustainability.

Ozkardeskaya noted that SpaceX’s stock price is about 160 times year-over-year sales, which he considers a high valuation. But unlike its mega-cap peers, SpaceX remains very unprofitable, posting a $5 billion loss during the period.

The company’s IPO prospectus also highlighted significant execution risks and warned that the company’s space infrastructure plans may not generate profits within a reasonable period of time.

“The announcement of the acquisition of Cursol does not change anything mathematically. There is no way SpaceX is worth US$2.66 trillion. A complete stop,” Ozkardeskaya said.

Only about 4% of SpaceX’s shares are available for public trading, and the IPO’s immediate impact may be limited because of its small index weight.

However, Lombard Odier noted that as lock-up restrictions expire and more shares enter circulation, the stock’s weight in major indexes is expected to increase, increasing its influence on broader market performance.

unitree robotics

The long-awaited listing of Chinese robotics company Unitree represents another side of the AI ​​boom: embodied AI.

The company passed the examination by the Shanghai Stock Exchange Listing Committee on June 1st. The planned Shanghai listing is reportedly seeking a valuation of around 4.2 billion yuan (S$802 million).

Since the company generated revenue of 1.7 billion yuan in 2025, this valuation implies a price-to-sales multiple of about 25 times.

Unitree’s IPO will be one of China’s biggest land-based technology listings in years and will test whether physical AI applications can command the same premium as software.

For now, real-world factory deployment remains limited.

According to Unitree’s prospectus, the company’s humanoid industrial application revenue mainly comes from enterprise reception and tour guide usage, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent inspection, with enterprise tour guide usage accounting for approximately 50-70%.

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a June 23 note that the humanoid industry’s focus is shifting “from demonstration to commercialization and the creation of real business value.”

Unlike Western software companies, Unitree’s reputation depends on manufacturing scale and hardware adoption.

Reflecting growing commercialization momentum, policy support, and positive feedback from suppliers, Morgan Stanley recently raised its forecast for China’s humanoid robot shipments in 2026 to 50,000 units from 28,000 units previously.

Analysts expect half-size humanoid robots like Unitree’s G1, which currently sells for $16,000 each, to account for about 70% of total shipments this year.

But a price war is also on the horizon, with at least 46 robotics companies in the IPO pipeline in Hong Kong alone, according to Bloomberg.

“Commercial validation, policy support, and supply chain feedback indicate that the adoption of humanoid robots in China is accelerating,” the Morgan Stanley report said, predicting the domestic market size to reach US$15 billion by 2030.

human

Returning to the US software industry, the AI ​​giant behind Claude filed for a US IPO in June. The size and terms of the offering were not disclosed, but the company previously raised US$65 billion at a post-money valuation of US$965 billion in late May.

The IPO valuation is widely expected to be more than US$1 trillion.

The resulting stock market debut could reshape benchmark indexes, investor flows and the broader narrative driving U.S. stocks.

Currently, open-end funds, closed-end funds, and exchange-traded funds provide a bridge to these private market leaders. Anthropic is already held by 131 funds, representing approximately US$6.9 billion in investment exposure, according to Morningstar data.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that the company could grow 80 times its size this year.

It also has a series of deals with industry giants, including SpaceX, to acquire more computing power.

However, the timing of the filing coincides with the rise in charges for companies using AI. These companies are increasingly scrutinizing the return on investment they can get from AI, especially since Anthropic moved to token-based pricing earlier this year.

OpenAI

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, filed its first registration documents shortly after Anthropic. OpenAI also did not disclose the size or terms of the offering, saying that no timeline has been set yet.

Reuters reports that OpenAI could be made public as early as September and is targeting a valuation of up to US$1 trillion in its public debut.

OpenAI announced in March that it generates $2 billion in monthly revenue and is growing about four times faster than companies like Alphabet and Meta that defined the internet and mobile era.

Overcrowded market?

Analysts have widely observed concerns about crowded capital markets for the US-based software giant. This supply pressure has been exacerbated by incumbent tech giants exploiting the market for cash.

Unlike the highly regulated domestic capital pools used by Chinese hardware companies such as Unitree, these U.S. IPOs will have to contend with hyperscalers’ capital outflows and liquidity.

“The growing wave of equity issuance over debt by mega-cap, high-tech hyperscalers like Meta and Google parent Alphabet raises questions about where the capital will come from,” BlackRock Investment Institute said in a June 15 note.

Lombard Odier noted that corporate share buyback activity is currently at its lowest level since 2021.

“The combination of a large number of new issues and very few exiting the market raises the possibility of a temporary oversupply of stocks if investor demand cannot keep up.”

BlackRock analysts said that while market absorption of this mega-issue is a real and notable risk, it is not in itself a reason to question the fundamentals of the AI ​​sector.

Aaron Socker, a portfolio specialist at William Blair Investment Management, said that while the index structure can affect short-term trading dynamics, long-term returns are ultimately driven by the fundamentals of the business.

Meanwhile, Morningstar’s director of UK manager research, Monica Caray, warned investors that passive ETFs will become a key exposure channel as these blockbuster IPOs come to market.

Regarding concerns about whether the market will be able to absorb the additional supply of stocks, analysts at Julius Baer suggested in a June 5 note that such concerns are overblown.

“In our view, therefore, the current resurgence should be seen less as a warning sign and more as evidence of improved confidence in capital markets. While selectivity will remain essential, the next generation of public companies is likely to create attractive opportunities for both active and passive investors,” they wrote.