Who owns what, and what comes next

32,000 companies. Locked.

Private capital now owns more, larger and older companies than the public market is built to absorb. Scroll to watch the locked field turn into tokens: a map of how capital gets stuck, and the bridge that could set it moving.

By Chris Nobili

32,000unsold PE-owned companies (Bain, GPER 2026)

$3.8Ttheir value worldwide (Bain)

~7 yrsaverage buyout hold at exit (Bain)

~$39Bdistributed real-world assets on-chain (RWA.xyz)

Chapter 01 / Stuck capital

The clock that will not stop

Money enters private equity through LP commitments and leaves only when a company is sold or listed. When the listing door narrows, more exits become sales to another sponsor, and the hold clock starts again.

U.S. platform median hold, 2018 to 20204.7 yrs
U.S. platform median hold, 2025 (Private Equity Info)5.9 yrs
PE median hold, 2025 (Private Equity Info, 2000 to 2025 study)6.0 yrs
Buyout average hold, 2010 to 2021 (Bain)5 to 6 yrs
Buyout average hold at exit, 2025 (Bain)about 7 yrs
LP distributions, share of NAV, 2025 (Bain)14%

Providers use different definitions; series are shown side by side, not spliced.

7 yrs

average buyout hold at exit

2025, Bain. Ring scale: 10 years.

Chapter 02 / Where have all the public companies gone?

Half the market went dark

Ritter's count of U.S.-listed domestic operating companies peaked at 7,451 in 1997 and stood at 3,657 at the end of 2025. Each light below is about ten companies. Scroll and watch the lights go out.

3,657

listed companies, end of 2025

Peak 7,451 in Q2 1997. Source: Ritter, CRSP data.

310 to 99

average U.S. IPOs per year

1980 to 2000 versus 2001 to 2012. Gao, Ritter and Zhu (2013).

$37M to $246M

median IPO proceeds

1980 versus 2025, in 2025 dollars. Ritter, Table 4f.

6 to 12

median company age at IPO, years

1980 versus 2025. Ritter, Table 4.

Only 90 U.S. operating-company IPOs priced in 2025 (Ritter, Table 1). Buyout-backed IPOs: 98 in 1992, 0 in 2022, 14 in 2025 (Ritter, Table 4c).

Chapter 03 / The barbell

Too big to be small. Too small to be owned.

The largest public managers own large, liquid, index-eligible companies. Large private funds own the middle. Ownership caps and position sizes mean a company must grow to IPO scale before the biggest pools can hold it.

Diversified fund limit (Investment Company Act s.5(b)(1))5% / 10%
Schedule 13D trigger (Exchange Act s.13(d))over 5%
Minimum position size Illustrative$100M
Implied floor: $100M at a 10% cap (arithmetic on the illustration)$1B
Median IPO market value, 2025 (Ritter, Table 4f)$1.56B

Company value $400M

Chapter 04 / The IPO tidal wave

A universe of private giants

1,680 unicorns worth $8.6T worldwide (PitchBook, Q1 2026) and 13,325 U.S. PE-backed companies (PitchBook via CBIZ, Q1 2026). Below, eleven giants orbit by value; orb area tracks the latest cited value. Select one to focus it.

ListedPrivateIPO filing reported

Signs the wave is building

SpaceX priced the largest U.S. IPO on record at $135 a share; $75B base deal, $85.7B with overallotment (SpaceX; Reuters)
Anthropic reportedly targets a mid-November listing (IFR)
About a third of U.S. PE inventory is over six years old (CBIZ, citing PitchBook)

Why it may not clear

18 VC-backed IPOs in Q3 2026; SpaceX did not reopen the window (PitchBook-NVCA)
Top 10 unicorns hold 41.3% of unicorn value (PitchBook)
Shein listed near a quarter of its 2022 private value (Who Brands)

Private valuations are marks or press reports unless the company is listed. CB Insights counts 1,447 global unicorns on a different method.

Chapter 05 / The vault

$3.8T behind the door. $39B through it.

Abstract illustration: a glowing hexagonal vault door cracking open as small luminous cubes stream outward

Tokenization adds a third route between owning a whole asset and owning a slice through a vehicle. The bridge exists; the traffic has not arrived.

Unsold PE companies (Bain)

$3,800B

U.S. unicorn value (PitchBook-NVCA)

$5,700B

Buyout dry powder (Bain)

$1,300B

Distributed RWAs on-chain (RWA.xyz)

~$39B

Bars scaled to $3,800B; the unicorn bar is capped at full width. Illustrative comparison, not a forecast.

$37.8B

Tokenized private credit, represented, Oct 15 (O2O Capital citing RWA.xyz)

$14.64B

Tokenized U.S. Treasury funds, Oct 24 (RWA.xyz)

$2.39B

Franklin BENJI and iBENJI, Oct 24 (RWA.xyz)

$2.17B

BlackRock BUIDL, Oct 24 (RWA.xyz)

Whole asset
Direct ownership. Large tickets, few buyers, slow exit.
Interest via a vehicle
A fund, holding company or listed stock. Liquidity depends on the vehicle going public.
Tokenized interest
Fractional, recorded on a ledger, transferable within the rules. A bridge for assets stuck between private and public.

Chapter 06 / Tokenization has a date

The countdown is already running

Rules are arriving with dates. Securities law still applies; a token is not an exemption, and the Innovation Exemption covers listed NMS stock, not private company shares.

Jul 18, 2025

GENIUS Act signed

Public Law 119-27

Jan 28, 2026

SEC staff: tokenized securities remain under existing securities law

SEC statement

Sep 17, 2026

SEC Innovation Exemption for trading tokenized NMS stock

SEC; Sidley

Jan 18, 2027

GENIUS Act effective, no later than this date

in 86 days

Public Law 119-27

Feb 4, 2027

Korea's tokenized securities law takes effect

in 103 days

Chris Nobili, Tokenization Has a Date

Interactive / Tokenize it

Tokenize a company

Pick a company value and the slice its owners offer. See whether an illustrative $100M-minimum manager could own it under a 10% cap, and how many holders a tokenized slice could reach.

Illustrative model

Assumptions are framings, not sourced figures or forecasts: a $100M minimum position, a 10% ownership cap and a user-set token size. Real offerings face transfer restrictions, accredited-investor limits and thin secondary markets.

Company value $400M

Slice offered as tokens 10%

Token size $1,000

$40Mtokenized slice value

40,000tokens issued

$40Mlargest position at a 10% cap

Sources and data

Every figure, cited

This experience is built from Who Owns What and Tokenization. A longer series on tokenization is coming.

Download the data (CSV)

For discussion only. Not investment advice. Figures reflect sources dated through October 24, 2026. Hold-period series come from different providers and definitions and are not spliced. Private valuations are marks or press reports unless a company is listed. The $100M minimum position and the Tokenize it simulator are illustrative framings, not sourced figures or forecasts. The vault image is an abstract illustration and carries no data.