Kalshi led this week's private market news, as the company is said to be eyeing a $40B valuation in a new funding round, while Israel explores U.S. listings for defense firms IAI and Rafael and OpenAI signals it may wait until next year for its IPO.

This week's private company news:

Kalshi is in discussions to raise new funding at an approximately $40B valuation and could close the round as early as the third quarter of this year as it expands prediction market offerings and competes more directly with major derivatives and gambling companies, The Financial Times' Ivan Levingston, Amelia Pollard and George Steer report. Kalshi raised $1B at a $22B valuation in May.
Israel is considering U.S. listings for state-owned defense companies Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to potentially avoid stricter domestic disclosure rules, with officials expected to visit the U.S. in July to evaluate IPO options, Bloomberg's Galit Altstein reports. According to an Israeli official familiar with the trip, possibilities include either a primary or dual listing. Publicly traded companies in the space include BAE Systems (BAESY), Boeing (BA), GE Aerospace (GE), General Dynamics (GD), HII (HII), L3Harris Technologies (LHX), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC) and RTX (RTX).
OpenAI is leaning toward waiting until next year for its public listing, The New York Times' Rob Copeland and Mike Isaac report, citing three people involved in the company's deliberations.

Some of the biggest capital raises by private companies this week include:

Peregrine – Peregrine Technologies announced a $250M Series D financing at a $6.8B valuation. The round was led by existing investors, including Fifth Down Capital, Sequoia Capital, OG Venture Partners, Goldcrest Capital, XYZ Ventures, and Godfrey Capital. Publicly-traded companies operating in the same space include Palantir (PLTR) and Axon Enterprise (AXON).
Runpod - AI Developer Cloud Runpod announced a $100M growth investment led by Summit Partners. Runpod is now valued at $1B. Publicly-traded companies operating in the same space include CoreWeave (CRWV) and DigitalOcean (DOCN).
xCures - xCures, a healthcare data company focused on improving healthcare outcomes, announced the close of a $46M Series B financing round led by Innovius Capital, with participation from iGrow, GKCC, Spring Mountain Capital, and existing investors. The new capital brings xCures' total funding to more than $76M. Publicly-traded companies operating in the same space include Tempus AI (TEM).

Unicorns to watch this week:

Airwallex - The global payments company has raised $320M in a Series H funding round, valuing it at $11B, a 38% increase from just six months ago, as the fintech firm doubles down on AI-powered financial software.The latest funding round was led by New York venture capital firm Addition, with investment from funds including Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, Washington University in St. Louis and Amex Ventures.
General Intuition - The AI startup has raised $320M in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures. General Catalyst, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also participated in the round, which gave General Intuition a post-money valuation of $2.3B.
DeepSeek - The Chinese company plans to double its workforce after raising more than $7.4B in its first funding round, as it looks to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic.

Other IPOs to watch:

Doncasters - The aerospace parts maker said on Wednesday it had raised $919.3M in its U.S. IPO. The company sold 27.9 million shares in the IPO at $33 per share, above the marketed range of $28 and $32 apiece. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DPC.
MetaOptics - The company is set to price its U.S. IPO on June 26, 2026. The Singapore-based metalens manufacturer is offering 4 million American Depositary Shares at an estimated price range of $5 to $7, targeting to raise approximately $18M. It will trade on Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol MOT.
Futurewave Acquisition Corporation - The Cayman Islands blank check company priced its IPO of 7,500,000 units at $10.00 per unit. Each unit includes one ordinary share, one redeemable warrant exercisable at $11.50, and one right for one-fourth of a share. The shares began trading on Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol FWAC.
Alpex Acquisition Corporation - The blank check company announced the pricing of its IPO of 10M units at $10.00 per unit. The units will trade on the Nasdaq Global Market the ticker symbol ALPX.

"Private Markets" is The Fly's recurring series of stories on the latest moves in the private sector, largest unicorn companies and initial public offerings to watch. Fly subscribers, add $PRIVATE to your portfolio for alerts on breaking news in the startup and venture capital space.

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