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— February 18, 2026

PowerLaw’s Nasdaq Filing: A Public-Market Shortcut to Private Tech…

Over the last few years, some of the most explosive companies in tech have stayed private. Names like OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX have created massive value behind closed doors, while most retail investors watched from the sidelines.

Now a company called PowerLaw Corp. is trying to change that. PowerLaw has filed to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker PWRL, positioning itself as a potential “backdoor” way for everyday investors to gain exposure to private tech leaders.

What PowerLaw actually is

PowerLaw is structured as a closed-end management investment company (registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940). In plain English: it’s a publicly traded wrapper around a portfolio of private-company stakes.

In its filings, PowerLaw says its investment portfolio was roughly $355 million (at cost) across 18 portfolio companies as of December 31, 2025, with the vast majority of exposure tied to private technology companies.

The draw is obvious. You get public-market access to private-market winners, including large positions in names that rarely become available to everyday investors.

What’s in the portfolio

The filings and related coverage describe stakes in a range of private tech companies, including names like Perplexity, Anduril, Groq, Kalshi, and Databricks, plus the “heavyweights” such as OpenAI and SpaceX.

PowerLaw is essentially offering a concentrated bet on those names, exclusive to private, institutional investors.

The big risk: this can trade like a meme stock with a balance sheet

Even if the underlying holdings are high quality, the stock price can behave very differently than the portfolio’s “fair value.”

This matters because:

• It’s a direct listing / resale-style structure, not a traditional underwritten IPO, which can make early price discovery messy.
• Closed-end funds and similar vehicles can trade at large premiums or discounts to the value of their underlying holdings.
  • Meaning, even if the fund does well, the stock might not trade in correlation.
• Liquidity, float, and investor sentiment can create major swings that have little to do with fundamental portfolio performance.

Check out Destiny Tech100 (DXYZ) as a “volatility preview.” DXYZ is also a public vehicle designed to provide access to private tech companies, and it has been known to move sharply.

Should investors just wait for IPOs instead?

If your goal is sustainable, long-duration exposure, its wiser to simply wait for more traditional public offerings rather than buying a new structure that can trade wildly around sentiment.

Given the fact that OpenAI is exploring an IPO timeline and that Anthropic has taken steps consistent with IPO preparation, its smarter to wait it out. After all, IPOs can be volatile enough!

Bottom line

PowerLaw’s Nasdaq filing is a fascinating development for retail investors. It could offer rare access to elite private tech names, but it comes with structural risks that can create outsized volatility.

If you’re excited by the concept and have some “fun money” to roll with, go for it, but know that this is not a clean proxy for the underlying companies. It’s a tradable wrapper that can be priced by the market in unpredictable ways.

As always, appreciate you all in the Wall Street Game Notes community 🫶🏼

Be good!