Polymarket launched prediction markets on OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, and other unicorns under an exclusive data partnership with Nasdaq Private Market.
Posted May 20, 2026 at 6:14 am EST.
Polymarket launched a new category of prediction markets Tuesday tied to the valuations, IPO timing, and secondary-market activity of major private companies, powered by an exclusive data partnership with Nasdaq Private Market.
The first markets cover some of the most closely watched names in tech and crypto: OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Stripe, Kraken, Anduril, and Databricks. Early contracts include whether OpenAI will surpass a $1 trillion valuation at IPO before 2027, whether Anthropic reaches $500 billion in 2026, and whether Anthropic will be valued higher than OpenAI at any point this year. These are standard event contracts, not equity access. Traders are betting on milestones, not buying shares.
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Nasdaq Private Market will serve as the exclusive resolution data provider, anchoring contract outcomes to data from primary and secondary private-market transactions. In a first, NPM said it will make the underlying valuation data publicly available for free, without a subscription. The arrangement gives Polymarket’s contracts a data backbone that competitors like Kalshi lack: Kalshi offers some IPO-related contracts but resolves them using SEC filings and news reports rather than a dedicated private-market data feed.
The product targets a structural gap. Private companies are staying private longer, pushing more value creation outside public markets. Polymarket said nearly 1,600 unicorns globally now represent more than $5 trillion in cumulative value. Retail investors have historically had no way to participate in that growth before an IPO. The new markets let them trade on outcomes tied to that universe for the first time.
Polymarket has recorded nearly $39 billion in U.S. volume so far in 2026, and new market launches have hit consecutive monthly highs over the past year. The partnership arrives in the same week that the CFTC escalated its defense of federal jurisdiction over prediction markets, suing Minnesota over the nation’s first explicit ban.
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