CrossWork · Late-stage venture capital
CrossWork invests in top late-stage companies where we can buy in at a large discount to the last round, with access through an advisory board of former operators.
Existing CrossWork investors can review Midas II, and the combined record of the CrossWork vehicles, in the portal. Sign in
CrossWork became a Cerebras shareholder in 2023. In May 2026 Cerebras raised $5.6 billion, the second-largest US IPO of 2026 by a first-time issuer at the time, behind only SpaceX.
Seven recent exits; those with disclosed values were worth $50 billion+ combined at the time of each exit.
Our focus now: top companies, valued at $1B+ with $100M+ in revenue, where we can invest at a large discount to the last round.
The same companies top-tier funds own, at a better price. (Our view.)
The value proposition
| A top-tier fund | Through CrossWork | |
|---|---|---|
| The companies | Late-stage category leaders | The same cap tables: companies valued at $1B+ with $100M+ in revenue |
| The price | The round price | Where there is a time-sensitive need for capital, at a large discount to the last round |
| The check | A large minimum to get in | A smaller minimum |
Terms are set out in the memorandum. How Midas II invests
Thesis
Three observations, and why they create a large discount.
The best companies now stay private for a decade or more, so most of their growth happens before the IPO.
Even top companies and their backers sometimes need capital on a short timeline. When speed matters more than price, the price comes down.
These situations are rarely marketed. Our advisory board of former operators finds them, and tells us which companies are worth owning.
Exits
Realized exits have already returned capital to investors. Early positions in companies that went on to define their categories. Detailed performance is available to verified investors in the CrossWork portal. See the outcomes
Acquired by Hg · May 2024
Audit, risk and compliance software; the largest VC-backed exit of 2024 at the time, per Crunchbase.
Acquired by IBM · closed May 28, 2025
IBM bought the Cassandra and Langflow company to put enterprise data within reach of AI.
Meta investment · June 2025
Meta paid about $14 billion for a 49% stake, valuing Scale at more than $29 billion; a partial realization for holders.
Growth buyout led by Vector Capital · closed Oct 16, 2025
A private-equity path to liquidity for a top AI-focused database; terms undisclosed.
IPO · May 2026
raised; the second-largest US IPO of 2026 by a first-time issuer at the time, behind only SpaceX.
Acquired by SAP · closed May 7, 2026
SAP bought the master-data company to make SAP and non-SAP data AI-ready.
Agreed to be acquired by Cinven · July 2026 · pending
Product-experience software for consumer brands; closing subject to regulatory approvals.
Where we look · AI infrastructure
Demand for compute compounds with every task AI takes on, and we look for the companies that supply it: chips, power, cooling, data centers and networks.
Global AI token consumption is expected to grow about 40 times over the next four years, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon (COMPUTEX keynote, June 1, 2026).
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, COMPUTEX keynote, June 1, 2026. Qualcomm's combined third-party sourcing and internal analysis.
The window
Each platform shift produced a small set of category leaders, and once they listed the private window on them closed. The pattern is repeating now, faster.
ServiceNow, a cloud category leader, listed in 2012.
Facebook listed in May 2012 and Twitter in November 2013: the social-mobile leaders went public within eighteen months of each other.
Cerebras listed in May 2026 and SpaceX in June 2026. OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidentially for IPOs, and Discord reportedly filed confidentially in January 2026.
Discipline
What we buy, and what we do if the cycle turns.
Many investors worry about an AI bubble. So do we. That is why we look for companies with real revenue, real customers and a visible path to liquidity, rather than pre-revenue stories.
Bubbles are a pricing problem; discipline on revenue and price is the answer.
Roughly $100M+ in annual revenue and a $1B+ valuation, with a visible path to liquidity.
Focus
Top companies in any sector that meet our criteria, and two areas in particular.
a.
The physical layer every AI system depends on: the chips it computes on, the power and cooling it draws, and the data centers and networks that connect it.
Chips · power · cooling · data centers · networks
b.
Companies that sell the finished result to the end customer, not a software tool for someone else to run: the work done, priced as a service.
AI-run services · outcomes, not licences
Portfolio · Cerebras
Most AI chips are cut from a wafer; Cerebras keeps the whole wafer as one processor.
The wafer is about 57 times the area of a leading GPU die, drawn here to true relative scale.
Keeping a model's working data on one wafer avoids shuttling it between chips; Cerebras says its systems run inference up to 30 times faster than GPU systems. For buyers, that is cost and speed per token.
Illustrative geometry, sourced figures.
Portfolio · Stripe
Stripe's 2025 total volume, ranked against national GDP on one shared scale.
Equivalent to roughly 1.6% of global GDP, per Stripe.
Payments infrastructure compounds with the economy it serves, and agents will soon be paying for things too.
Nominal GDP, IMF WEO April 2026; Stripe total payment volume 2025, per Stripe. Volume processed is not revenue.
Illustrative geometry, sourced figures.
Case studies
Two positions, and what the market saw afterwards.
Case study · 2023 to 2026
Our operators saw wafer-scale compute as a platform, not a chip: the constraint on training frontier models was moving from algorithms to hardware, and Cerebras had built for that.
In May 2026 the market agreed. Its IPO raised $5.6B at $185 a share, the second-largest US IPO of 2026 by a first-time issuer at the time.
Case study · Midas I to 2024
A system of record for audit and risk, bought by operators before investors noticed it. The people who had run those functions knew what they would pay for.
In 2024 Hg acquired it for $3B+, the largest VC-backed exit of 2024 at the time.
Portfolio
Company names are shown as text, for identification only.
Advisory board
Our advisory board is made of former operators: finance chiefs, engineering leaders, scientists and founders. They hear about companies before the market does, sit in diligence on the businesses they know best, and tell us when to walk away.
Meet the advisory boardPick a company. Three former operators frame it.
Is the revenue concentrated in a few buyers, and how does that change as inference demand broadens?
Wafer-scale is a systems bet, not a chip bet. The question is the software stack that keeps customers from porting away.
Who signs the purchase order: a lab, a cloud or an enterprise? Each buys for different reasons.
Illustrative commentary written by CrossWork; not advice and not a view on price.
Research
How endowments, pensions, sovereign funds, family offices and wealth managers hold private equity, investor by investor.
Who invests
Every investor comes to CrossWork through a conversation.
Patient capital with a long horizon, looking for access that public channels do not provide.
Long-term capital adding late-stage private companies that public portfolios cannot reach.
They have run large companies and know how a category leader is built, and how one stalls.
They read a business the way its eventual buyers will, from the numbers up.
They have built and sold companies, and know what a durable one looks like from the inside.
They watched growth move from the public markets into private rounds, and prefer to be where it happens.
How it works
Tell us who you are and what you bring.
We talk about what you are looking for and whether we are the right fit.
If it fits on both sides, we share the memorandum.
