Why Your Startup Specialist Is Taking a Victory Lap

By Jim Nelson

You’ve seen a lot of your startup ace, Chris Graebe, this week. 

Normally, he’s on the road tracking down the next hot pre-IPO opportunity. 

And believe me, he does not take any time off … ordinarily. 

But the reason he’s had time to check in here twice over the past five days is because he already found the startup he’s been looking for the past few months. 

It opened its doors to an Alpha Round of funding on Thursday. And it’s filling up fast.

Here’s what Chris shared from his recent interview with John Burke on the subject: 

“Chris: Can we get Protagonist Therapeutics back up on the screen, please? OK, thank you.

“Alright, so as you’ll recall, IPO investors did reasonably well. They had the chance to claim a 562% return. Not bad at all. Nothing to balk at.

“Now, skipping back a couple of steps — to the VC guys at the Series C round.

“Well, they got in a lot earlier and their performance? Well, they beat the IPO investors by a mile. They’re the ones that could have made as much as 6,582%.

“(…)the Alpha Round gains made even the Series C returns look tiny.

 

“So, the Alpha Round investors in Protagonist Therapeutics could have made as much as — get this — 37,989%.”

Protagonist Therapeutics is not the deal he’s so excited about, however. 

They went on to discuss the real deal Chris just showed his readers. 

But Chris also found time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. 

He is also looking at what’s going on with private equity “exits.” 

One way for a company to exit the private equity space is to IPO. And Chris is happy with what he sees here. 

He told you: 

“2025 is ending on a strong note for IPO investors.

“A whopping 314 companies have gone public in 2025 in the U.S. as of late November.

“That’s nearly one per day!

Source: EY.

 

“Globally, there have been another 194 IPOs.

“And many more pre-IPO companies continue to raise capital.”

If you want to see the latest pre-IPO to raise capital — and the one Chris has personally put his stamp of approval on — click here.

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Have a great weekend!

Jim Nelson
Managing Editor, Weiss Ratings Daily