Photo by Kevin Moss runs one of the few investment funds giving regular people a chance to buy into major technology companies before they start trading on stock exchanges, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX serving as his biggest draw.
The Private Shares Fund, which manages $1.1 billion, had put 13.68% of its money into the rocket manufacturer as of December, a $151 million position that represents the fund’s top investment. That’s a larger percentage bet than even Cathie Wood has made on the aerospace company.
With several of the fund’s portfolio companies like Discord, Kraken and Motive Technologies getting ready to launch initial public offerings, 2026 looks promising for Moss’s investment approach. These private holdings will soon face their first real market test when they start trading publicly.
SpaceX takes center stage as fund’s top holding
The appeal of owning SpaceX stock showed up clearly in investor behavior. When the news broke about SpaceX planning to go public, money flowing into the fund jumped 201% above what it typically sees in a year. For the 56-year-old Moss, the sales pitch is straightforward: tie up your cash to get early access to major tech names, even though private company values aren’t transparent, profits aren’t guaranteed, and it might take years to cash out.
“We saw SpaceX at the time as an emerging leader,” Moss explained in a Bloomberg interview when discussing his first purchase of $10 million back in 2019. That investment has grown fifteen times since then.
Buying those shares took real effort. Moss traveled to the company’s California headquarters, walked through the factory, and sat down with company officials before completing the transaction.
The rocket company is planning to go public potentially this year, with reports suggesting it could be valued at $1.5 trillion, which would make it the largest stock market debut ever.
Looking at returns, the fund hasn’t beaten the Russell 2000 index over one-year and three-year periods, though it matched the index’s performance over five years, based on Bloomberg data.
While most investment funds buy into companies like SpaceX through special investment vehicles or roundabout methods, Moss purchases shares directly from the company’s official ownership records. SpaceX carefully reviews every potential shareholder. According to Cryptopolitan, SpaceX is looking at possibly combining with Tesla Inc. or artificial intelligence company xAI, another company in Moss’s portfolio.
The fund uses what’s called an interval fund structure. Unlike regular mutual funds, people can only pull their money out during three-month windows. This setup prevents having to sell holdings when markets get rocky. The entry point is $2,500.
Investors don’t get full transparency on some important details
The fund doesn’t reveal its current valuation of SpaceX, how much that holding has contributed to performance, or how a major public offering might change the fund’s worth. Like other interval funds, it provides quarterly reports showing cost basis, position size and fair value.
Even when investor interest spikes, getting more exposure to hot companies like SpaceX isn’t automatic. Private company shares aren’t always up for sale, and when they are, companies like SpaceX strictly control who can buy.
Every Thursday, Moss and his four-person team, two portfolio managers and two analysts, review their roughly 80 investments, working through valuations and exit strategies. They have tough standards. Companies need at least $50 million in revenue and must be growing 30% annually. Moss expects about 10 portfolio companies to go public this year, including Kraken, Discord, and Motive Technologies.
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