The way VCX trades has an almost theatrical quality. One day it’s down thirty percent, the next it’s up almost twenty percent, and in between, a Reddit thread is filled with people arguing for or against their positions. The Fundrise Innovation Fund surged 19.82 percent to 137.79 dollars at the most recent close, and it continued to rise in after-hours trading toward 148 dollars. This kind of behavior is uncommon for a closed-end fund, which is meant to be the dull cousin of ordinary stocks. It has begun to seem almost inevitable for a fund with investments in OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and Databricks.
VCX itself isn’t what investors appear to be purchasing. They are purchasing access. For the typical retail investor, private companies like Anthropic and SpaceX are essentially walled gardens; you can’t just sign up for shares on Robinhood. For those private valuations, VCX has emerged as the closest thing to a public ticker thanks to its concentrated portfolio of pre-IPO AI and tech companies. And that’s enough to push the stock in directions it probably shouldn’t go in a market that is fixated on anything related to Claude or OpenAI.
As a number of skeptics have noted, the math is unsettling. The net asset value of the fund is approximately $19 per share. That is about an eight-fold premium at $137. The premium surpassed 30x earlier this spring when the stock momentarily reached 575. Jim Cramer referred to it as “pure lunacy,” and prominent short-seller Citron Research adopted a pessimistic stance. Even on r/investing on Reddit, which isn’t exactly a sober analytical forum, users were subtly pointing out that it appeared to be “a retail trap.”
However, for some, the trap—if that’s what it is—has proven to be extremely lucrative. Before the public listing, early Fundrise investors made purchases for between $9 and $19, and they are currently enjoying multi-thousand percent gains. A user explained how to convert $5,400 into about $270,000 “calmly, with a bottle of Blanton’s.” The disbelieving tone people used about Amazon in 1999 and about Tesla in 2013 is a cultural echo that is difficult to ignore. A few of those wagers became legendary. Others vanished in silence.
The upcoming issue is structural rather than emotional. Up until September 14, 2026, about 100,000 pre-listing investors with cost bases significantly lower than current prices are locked up. A significant surge of supply may suddenly enter the market when that lockup ends. The NAV would still land at about $28, which is a long way from where the stock is currently trading, even if every private holding in the fund increased by 50% by that time. Narrative is irrelevant to the math.
The bull case also contains an odd paradox. The entire purpose of VCX, which is to provide a workaround for retail access to private AI giants, will be partially eliminated if OpenAI and Anthropic actually go public, as many analysts now predict within the next two years. Investors would just purchase the underlying businesses outright. The premium of the fund would likely compress significantly.
But for the time being, the trade is the trade. There’s a feeling that VCX is now more of a sentiment thermometer than an investment vehicle, where consumer enthusiasm for AI is converted into a daily tradable price. It’s like watching a story unfold in real time with a genuinely uncertain ending when you watch it move. It remains to be seen if September will bring a reckoning or another leg higher. One thing is certain, though: a stock that fluctuates 20% on a calm Tuesday is not acting like a fund. It’s acting like a wager.
