Powerlaw Corp, a Nasdaq-listed closed-end fund, considers strategic sale of part of its SpaceX shares
Powerlaw Corp. (Ticker: PWRL), a closed-end fund listed on Nasdaq, is considering a strategic sale of part of its SpaceX shares. The funds raised will be used for dividends, tax distributions, and new private market investments. SpaceX is its largest holding.
Powerlaw has sold shares before. On September 2, 2026, it sold part of its SpaceX shares at $140 per share, raising approximately $19 million for the same purposes of dividends, tax distributions, and new investments. As of May 13, 2026, its holdings in SpaceX were valued at approximately $117 million, accounting for 19.37% of the fund's net assets, making it the largest single holding.
A new dividend plan was also announced: based on a net asset value of $16.23 per share as of August 31, 2026, the annualized dividend yield is 6%, with a monthly payout of $0.0812 per share, announced quarterly and paid monthly, covering the fiscal year 2027. The record date for the first dividend is October 20, with a payment date of October 30. Based on a share price of $11.39, the actual annualized yield is approximately 8.6%, indicating a discount of about 30% to the net asset value. The year-end tax distribution plan will be announced in December 2026, with payments in the first quarter of 2027.
Powerlaw went public on Nasdaq via direct listing on May 27, 2026, backed by secondary market investment firm Akkadian Ventures. Since 2010, Akkadian has completed over 900 transactions, covering 139 portfolio companies, with approximately $1.55 billion in assets under management. In addition to SpaceX, the fund holds shares in companies such as OpenAI, Stripe, Databricks, Canva, Figma, Perplexity, Groq, Kalshi, Kraken, Tether, Waymo, and Rippling. Its expense ratio is 3.63%, significantly higher than the typical closed-end fund range of 1% to 1.5%.
The company also announced personnel appointments: Aayush Phumbhra, co-founder of Chegg, has been appointed Senior Vice President and Partner; Steve Blatney, formerly with Citi-ONE and Nasdaq Private Market, will oversee channels and distribution; Nicole Bellefeuille, formerly with BlackRock and Makena Capital, will handle investor relations. Additionally, starting September 24, 13,716,695 shares held by non-affiliated parties will be released from lock-up and can be traded.
SpaceX itself went public on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, with an offering price of $135, closing on the first day at $161, a 19% increase, marking the largest IPO in history. Pre-IPO investors will gradually have their shares unlocked in batches, and Powerlaw's transaction price of $140 per share is close to SpaceX's offering price.
From a market mechanism perspective, this is a sell-off driven by the fund's liabilities, unrelated to SpaceX's fundamentals. The seller is Powerlaw: with the stock price deeply discounted to net asset value and burdened by monthly dividend and tax distribution obligations, it can only liquidate its most liquid asset, SpaceX. The buyer is a secondary market investor in SpaceX. The flow of funds is from the already listed SpaceX back to new projects still in the private placement stage, as well as cash dividends for PWRL shareholders. Beneficiaries include PWRL shareholders receiving dividends and private targets awaiting new funding. The pressure is on SpaceX's circulating supply: pre-IPO shareholders are gradually unlocking and selling, leading to a continuous increase in market supply.
Source: Public information
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Akkadian Ventures started with the transfer of old shares from employees and early shareholders of tech companies, buying shares of unlisted companies at a discount from holding employees and angel investors, waiting for an IPO or acquisition exit. Over more than a decade, it has accumulated over 900 secondary transactions and 139 portfolio companies, overlapping significantly with old share trading platforms like Forge Global and EquityZen. Packaging this private equity portfolio into a closed-end fund for direct listing is its first shift from LP-directed fundraising to the public market: using stocks that retail investors can buy and sell at any time to exchange for permanent capital that does not need to be redeemed.
Its capital path is a closed loop: buying at a discount in private equity, waiting for an IPO to achieve a valuation leap, selling already listed stocks for cash, part of which is used for dividends to maintain stock prices, and another part reinvested into the next batch of unlisted companies. The 6% annualized dividend yield is crucial: once the stock price of such funds is significantly below net asset value for an extended period, they face pressure from aggressive investors demanding liquidation or buybacks; high dividends are the main tool to narrow the discount. Selling SpaceX dividends essentially uses the most certain income in the portfolio to support the market pricing of the fund.
The closest historical reference is GSV Capital, later known as SuRo Capital. It held pre-IPO shares of companies like Facebook and Twitter in a closed-end fund format around 2011. After Facebook went public in 2012, it sold shares in batches and distributed special dividends, but the stock price remained significantly below net asset value for a long time. Another reference is Destiny Tech100 (Ticker: DXYZ), which went public directly in 2024, also heavily invested in SpaceX, trading at over a 1000% premium at the beginning but subsequently saw the premium narrow significantly. For the same type of asset, DXYZ once had a huge premium, while PWRL is at about a 30% discount, indicating that the pricing of such products depends on market sentiment and scarcity rather than the underlying assets themselves. Powerlaw is currently in its first "realization period" post-listing, with the core task of proving its value at net asset value through dividends and asset rotation.
Structurally, this matter belongs to a transfer of pricing power. Before SpaceX went public, its valuation was determined by a few private equity rounds and old share transactions, allowing the funds holding it to value net assets at the most recent round price and enjoy scarcity premiums. After going public, SpaceX's price is continuously priced by the public market, scarcity disappears, and this portion of assets in the fund shifts from "source of premium" to "source of liquidity." Therefore, private equity funds will systematically sell already listed star stocks to buy the next batch of unlisted targets, re-establishing pricing advantages in the private market where information asymmetry still exists.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Before listing, it is a source of asset premium; after listing, it is just a source of cash.
- Once scarcity is continuously priced, the premium will be realized.
- Closed-end funds use dividends to exchange for trust, paying for liquidity with discounts.
Note: The listing data and lock-up arrangements for SpaceX come from English public reports, and the data on stock price trends post-listing is relatively singular, so the text only mentions the offering price and the first-day closing price.