Sean Ruman

🦄 Trader @ Setter Capital | Unlocking value and opportunities in the private markets

Frozen dessert connoisseur.

Personal views. Not investment advice.

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

The methodology, current Setter 30, and performance are all here: https://t.co/pEn9TAew2X

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

Wish we could take credit for picking the hottest names in the VC secondary market. We don't, the market does and we aggregate their feedback.

Since Q3 2023, the companies listed on the Setter 30 have outperformed the S&P by more than 4x.

[Aashay Sanghvi @aashaysanghvi_]

The Setter list is in the index inclusion effect in private markets

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

The 30 most in-demand startup secondary shares in Q2 '26 (per Setter Capital):

- Anthropic stays at the #1 most in-demand shares after its rumored to pass a ~$62B revenue run rate.

- Anduril hits its highest ranking ever at #2, replacing SpaceX post-IPO. Just make sure you're not investing in this one through an SPV...

- Prediction markets remain hot, with Polymarket and Kalshi climbing to 6 and 8 respectively. Interest in other crypto continues waning.

- Perplexity posted the largest increase this quarter, rebounding 12 spots to 16th after an 18-spot drop in Q1.

- Crusoe climbed nine spots to 10th as investors continue seeking exposure to compute, power, and data center capacity underpinning the AI buildout.

- Harvey also gained seven spots, benefiting from sustained demand for vertical AI companies.

- Defense technology and physical AI were also defining themes of the quarter, with Shield AI, Saronic, Hadrian, Figure AI, Apptronik, Physical Intelligence, Prometheus (and Anduril) all appearing on the list. I would assume this is the first of many quarters we see Prometheus on here.

- Several new entrants joined the ranking this quarter - spanning AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and next-generation computing, with Lightmatter and Together broadening the field beyond the defense and physical-AI names.

- Canva and Replit recorded the largest declines, falling 11 and 12 spots, respectively, as investor attention shifted toward newer opportunities despite continued interest in both companies.

Will be interesting to see how the top names change over the next 6-12 months as everyone IPO's!

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

Been working with @SetterVC on this list. It's derived from thousands of buy requests and daily feedback on their platform.

Not perfect, but gives an idea of what the 30 hottest startups are with the majority of secondary buyers

You can try out it out at https://t.co/vPMsi2aute

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

@Jason______A @markgrinev Remember the good ol' days when we used to live here? Landlord did us a favor by not renewing.

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

@markgrinev Twitter official! Congrats to my friends!

[will o’brien @Willob]

“So you bootstrapped the whole company?”

“Yeah, I turned it down. Turned down the funding.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I turned it down just to do this, just to grind it out, build it myself.”

“So you had an opportunity to take venture money?”

“Yeah, a term sheet and everything.”

“From who?”

“Yeah, a big fund out in Menlo Park. It was a top-tier firm, though. And they offered me like 15, some shit like 10 billion or something like that, 5 billion, something like that.”

“Wait, wait, wait. A term sheet.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, but not 5 billion dollars. They offered you 5 billion dollars for your seed round?”

“Yeah.”

“For a seed round?”

“Yeah.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Like, what the y’all, like, you know what I’m saying?”

“That’s more than the GDP of a small country.”

“But I was so younger, like, I didn’t know what a cap table was.”

“Are you sure they offered you 5 billion dollars?”

“I turned it down.”

“You didn’t even have a product.”

“It was a SAFE, like, I had to give up equity for this decade.”

“But you would get $5 billion?”

“Yeah.”

“You’d be one of the most valuable companies on earth.”

“It was somewhere, it was in the billions, though.”

[Joe 🌳 @Skogur2]

Your colleague who just transferred from the Chicago office uses Google Maps with the GTA angled like this

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

Just seen @SetterVC's latest report on the most in-demand secondaries from private companies:

@AnthropicAI back up to #1

Top Risers in Q1 2026:

1. @Kalshi surges up 13 to #11
2. @Replit up 12 to #17
3. @shieldaitech up 9 to #13

Flip side, top fallers:

1. Perplexity down 18 to #28
2. Crusoe fall 10 to #19
3. FigureAI down 7 to #23

@ElevenLabs debut in at #9 on the back of a record quarter.

Check out the full list here: https://t.co/EH8KiJ890f

[Kaushik Subramanian @TheHolyKau]

Oh you bought a @WHOOP ? Congrats, you like me are yet another person who spent $300 to figure out that eating well, exercising everyday and not drinking alcohol delivers better recovery and sleep

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

Am an investor in 3 of the top 7. Bought secondaries in 2 of the others. The other two: one I don’t know very well, one I think will have to reinvent themselves in a post-AI world.

If returns are what you’re after (me), secondary markets are the most effective way I’ve found to correct investment mistakes of the past.

I’ve sold dogs, I’ve bought winners I missed.

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

Been working with @SetterVC on this list. It's derived from thousands of buy requests and daily feedback on their platform.

You can try out it out at https://t.co/890THyPdkS

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

The 30 most in-demand startup secondary shares in Q1 '26 (per Setter Capital):

- Anthropic hits #1, bumping out SpaceX as the most desired shares on the list.
- Five of the top six companies are big IPO candidates in the next 12-18 months. They've been absorbing a lot of investor interest and capital over the past few quarters, it will be interesting to see what happens as they list.
- Prediction markets are still hot! Polymarket and Kalshi are two of the fastest risers. Anything crypto that hasn't rebranded as prediction markets continues softening.
- Replit and Shield AI are the two other fastest risers on the list. Lovable and Cursor also move up a few spots.
- ElevenLabs debuts at #9, tied (with Shield AI) for the highest ever. OpenEvidence and Saronic also make what I think is their first ever appearance on the list.
- Perplexity, Crusoe, and Figure both sliding significantly. Anecdotally feels like I haven't seen them discussed as much recently.

One notable data point, the average last round valuation of companies on the list was $120B (up 122% YoY). This compares to the average S&P 500 company valuation of $122B. Insane how big the private markets have gotten.

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

New leading indicator just dropped: if someone says your company was “the most fun I’ve ever had at work”… I got some bad news for you.

[Alex Cohen @anothercohen]

Damn, this one stings a bit.

The four years I spent at Carbon Health were some of the most fun I've had in my career working alongside some of the most ambitious and smart people I've ever met.

No regrets

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

Just seen @SetterVC's latest report on the most in-demand secondaries for private companies in Q4:

The big news @SpaceX reclaims the #1 spot (my bet… June 2026 they go public)

Top 3 Risers in the Top 30:

1. @Polymarket up 11 places to #15
2. @tryramp climbs 9 places up to #11
3. @cursor_ai rises 7 places to #18

Flip side, top fallers:

1. Ripple drops 12 places to #27
2. Kraken fell 10 spots to #20
3. Gleen also drops 10 places to #23

Several new entrants:

@Kalshi #24
@Lovable #30
@deel #19

The last 2 being 20VC portfolio companies…

👇
Visit https://t.co/V11Fh3hgCT for the full list

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@Kalshi What are the odds looking like?

[Nik @NikMilanovic]

still a lot of fintech (and fintech-adjacent) companies in the top 30 in-demand equity:

#5 - @stripe
#11 - @tryramp
#12 - @Revolut
#15 - @Polymarket
#19 - @deel
#20 - @krakenfx
#24 - @Kalshi
#27 - @Ripple

[Çağla Kaymaz @caglakaymaz]

@TurnerNovak @SpaceX @Polymarket @Kalshi @NotionHQ @Lovable @Replit @AnthropicAI @OpenAI @anduriltech @stripe Cool list, got me to scroll through the history of Setter30. Interesting Scale AI made the most wanted secondaries list about a full year before OpenAI did (and pre ChatGPT) and Databricks has consistently been in top ~5-6 since 2021

[Sean Ruman @Sean_Ruman]

@TurnerNovak @SpaceX @Polymarket @Kalshi @NotionHQ @Lovable @Replit @AnthropicAI @OpenAI @anduriltech @stripe Curious how this list has evolved over time?
You can view historic versions or sign up for SetterVC here → https://t.co/pEn9TAf3Sv

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

The 30 most in-demand startup secondary shares in Q4 '25 (per Setter Capital)

Big takeaways:
- SpaceX is back at #1. It spent 2.5 years on top before Anthropic briefly surpassed it in Q3.
- Little change at very top of the list beside Perplexity and Kraken dropping. Kraken's was likely due to the round announced in November (there's always an uptick going into rounds). These top names continue scooping capital from the large asset allocators.
- 19 of the top 30 are AI companies. This is even higher if you consider the AI implications around the hardware / robotics companies on the list.
- Polymarket sees the biggest jump in Q4. After debuting in Q3, it cracked the top 15 in its second quarter on the list. Kalshi also makes their debut.
- Notion rejoins the list. This was likely boosted by recent news of crossing $600M in ARR, with half coming from AI products.
- Lovable also makes its debut. It joins Replit as the second vibe coding platform. Round names are sort of arbitrary today, but a bit wild in isolation that a Series A company (they announced a B in December) had the 30th most in-demand secondary shares.
- Crypto more broadly sees a softening. My hypothesis is we're likely seeing material amounts of crypto volume switching to prediction markets. Would not be surprised to see every crypto exchange launch prediction markets.

Also notable, the average last round valuation of companies on this list are up 47% from Q3 (was 34% last quarter) and 129% YoY (was 90%).