Investor concerns around concentration risk aren’t limited just to public markets, according to new insights from Morningstar Indexes based on its Unicorn index series tracking performance of the late-stage venture capital market.
In the newest addition of the Unicorn Market Monitor, Morningstar Indexes experts highlight the strong year-to-date performance of the late-stage venture capital market as reflected by the Morningstar PitchBook Global Unicorn Index.
The Index, which tracks the daily performance of privately held, late-stage venture capital-backed companies with post-money valuations of at least $1 billion and currently contains more than 1,400 constituents, has risen more than 27.2% in 2026 as of May 19. That compares to an 8.5% rise for the Morningstar Global All Cap Target Market Exposure Index for the same time period.
The Index is currently dominated by closely watched private market standouts SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI, which represented nearly 27% of the Index as of April 30. Year-to-date gains in the Index have been driven primarily by this small group of mega-cap AI leaders, rather than broad-based gains.
Sanjay Arya – Head of Innovation, Morningstar Indexes:
“Late-stage private market performance is increasingly a story of concentration, with a small number of scaled AI leaders driving index gains. AI companies now represent 41% of the active unicorn universe by count and approximately half of total unicorn value. The anticipated IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could mark a watershed moment for public-private convergence, bringing enormous private companies into public markets at a scale that could reshape index inclusion, passive investment flows, and limited initial float relative to investor demand.”
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