Everyone says the public markets are dead. We just listed into that.

The consensus is that public markets are finished: fewer IPOs, founders staying private longer, the listed company a relic. The data behind that gloom is real. Our conclusion from it is the opposite. We listed Pyratz Corp. on Euronext Access — a small cap by design — precisely because the crowd is leaving. Public ownership is a sovereignty, permanent-capital and accountability tool for frontier technology. This is not investment advice.

Are public markets actually dead? What the data says

Start with the evidence for the funeral, because it is genuinely strong.

In the United States, the listed-company count peaked at roughly 8,000 names in 1996 and had fallen to around 4,500 by early 2023 — a drop of more than 40% (Tuck School of Business). The IPO machine slowed with it: between 1980 and 2000 roughly 300 companies went public each year in the US; over the following decade the average fell to little more than 100 (Harvard Kennedy School).

Companies that do list arrive much later in life. Jay Ritter of the University of Florida finds the median age at IPO reached about 13.5 years in 2024, up from roughly 4 years in 1999, with median revenue at listing soaring to around $218 million — firms now do most of their growing in private hands. Meanwhile the private pool has swollen: BlackRock projects private markets growing from $13 trillion in 2024 to $20 trillion by 2030, and CB Insights counts more than 1,200 unicorns sitting comfortably outside any exchange (CNBC).

Europe looks worse on the surface. European IPO activity in 2025 ran near a 20-year low — roughly 47 deals in the first nine months, about 70% below the two-decade average of 160 (Bloomberg). The first half saw proceeds fall some 58% year on year (AlphaSense).

So the verdict “public markets are dead” is not lazy. It is a fair reading of a real, multi-decade migration of capital and ambition into private hands. We simply think it is the wrong lesson — the same way an empty room can mean the party is over or that you have the floor to yourself.

Why list when everyone else is going private?

A market that everyone is leaving is, by definition, an uncrowded one. The same forces that emptied the public square — abundant private capital, the rise of secondary marketplaces like Forge and EquityZen that give employees liquidity without a listing, and the quarterly-earnings discipline founders would rather avoid — explain why companies stay private. None of them is a reason a listing is worse. They are reasons a listing is rarer. Scarcity and obsolescence are not the same thing.

For an early-stage investment firm and venture builder, going public does something the private route structurally cannot. Three things, in fact.

Permanent capital. A traditional fund lives on a clock: raise, deploy, exit, return, repeat, with limited partners who must be given their money back on a fixed horizon. A listed balance sheet has no such clock. We can hold a position for a decade, reinvest operating income, and compound across cycles without a fund’s end-of-life forcing a sale at the wrong moment. For frontier technology — where the interesting outcomes are measured in years, not quarters — patient permanent capital is not a nicety. It is the whole game. We wrote about why a cheque is only the start of the work in Capital is not enough: the operator-investor model.

Sovereignty. Europe produces world-class founders and research, then watches the resulting infrastructure get financed, owned and governed elsewhere. A public vehicle on a European exchange lets European retail and institutional shareholders own a slice of frontier-technology companies directly — businesses otherwise reachable only through private vehicles closed to almost everyone. That is the argument we made in Sovereign by design: sovereignty is not a slogan, it is an ownership structure. Listing in Paris rather than raising a private fund is a deliberate act of where ownership sits.

Accountability. The quarterly-reporting discipline founders flee is, for an investment firm, a feature. Public markets impose transparency, a certified cap table, audited accounts and a price that the world can see and contest. That discipline is uncomfortable by design — and it is exactly what separates a serious capital allocator from a black box. We chose to be measured in public.

What is a small cap on Euronext Access — and why start there?

A small cap on Euronext is a smaller, growth-stage listed company trading on one of Euronext’s markets, typically with a market capitalisation well below the large-cap names on the regulated main board. Euronext Access is Euronext’s entry market for exactly these companies: lighter listing requirements than the regulated market, designed for smaller and growth-stage issuers. Trading can be thinner, and prices can move on low volume — which is why limit orders matter more than market orders here.

We arrived via a reverse takeover (RTO): PyratzLabs took control of an existing listed vehicle — formerly Reboost Blockchain Corp. — and renamed it Pyratz Corp., trading under the ticker MLPTZ (ISIN FR0013371507). The RTO was approved on 29 June 2026. Trading resumed following completion of the post-RTO re-listing; the official notice is on our Press page.

Euronext Access is step one, not the destination. The plan is to raise capital through an IPO and move up to Euronext Growth in 2027. The financial calendar is public: a UCITS licence expected in Q4 2026, a first asset-management fund launched the same quarter, and the Euronext Growth listing targeted for the first half of 2027.

Starting small is the point. We are not pretending to be a blue chip. Euronext Access is the market built for companies at our stage, and using it honestly — limit orders, conviction-led holders, a long horizon — is more credible than a premature jump to a board we have not yet earned.

Doesn’t going public in 2026 mean buying into a dying asset class?

Read the migration the way a strategist reads any rout: ask where the incumbents have abandoned ground. The decline in listings is concentrated at the small end. The Harvard Kennedy School work cited above is specifically about the decline of the small IPO — the venture-scale, growth-stage listing that the modern market has all but stopped producing. That is precisely the segment Euronext Access exists to serve, and precisely the one almost nobody is competing for.

Europe, meanwhile, is actively rebuilding the on-ramp. The EU Listing Act has lightened prospectus and disclosure rules, France and Belgium have relaxed disclosure requirements, and a public-private fund for small and medium-sized issuers has been created to widen the door for high-growth companies (AlphaSense). The regulatory tide is turning toward the smaller listing, not away from it. Listing now is not buying the top of a fading asset class; it is taking position before the policy and the capital follow.

There is a strategic-history point underneath this. Alexander Gerschenkron’s “advantages of backwardness” describes how late movers leap by adopting a frontier and skipping the incumbent’s sunk stages. A firm listing into an emptied small-cap market inherits none of the legacy baggage and all of the open space. The exodus is the opportunity.

What does Pyratz actually do with a public listing?

The public-market move is not an exit; it is an acceleration mechanism. PyratzLabs has, since 2021, built a portfolio of 29 companies, helped raise more than €150M across them, produced one billion-dollar company and six exits — names including Kiln, Zama, Bubblemaps and Kinetix. The listing turns that operator-investor engine into something a European public shareholder can hold.

What comes next is specific. Once trading resumes, the path runs through a fundraising round and toward financing a regulated fintech: confidential, tokenised funds that bring confidentiality to on-chain finance. The building blocks are already in the portfolio — Zama’s fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), our Stealth AM asset-management subsidiary, and the UCITS licence expected in Q4 2026. The joint venture Zaïfer, formed by Zama and PyratzLabs for confidential and compliant on-chain finance (reported by DL News), is one expression of that thesis. Permanent public capital is how we fund the long build toward it.

That is the whole argument compressed. Public markets are not dead; they are uncrowded at the frontier. We did not list despite the consensus. We listed because of it.

Frequently asked questions

Are public markets dead in 2026?

No. The number of listed companies and the rate of IPOs have fallen sharply over three decades — US listings dropped over 40% from their 1996 peak, and European IPO activity in 2025 ran near a 20-year low. But this is a migration of capital into private markets and a decline concentrated in small listings, not the disappearance of public markets. The public square is emptier, not closed.

What is a small cap on Euronext Access?

A small cap on Euronext Access is a smaller, growth-stage listed company trading on Euronext’s entry market, which has lighter listing requirements than the regulated main board. Trading volumes can be thin and prices can move on low volume, so investors typically use limit orders. It is designed for companies at an earlier stage of the public-markets journey.

Why did Pyratz go public when companies are staying private longer?

Because a listing gives an investment firm three things a private fund cannot: permanent capital with no fund-life clock, European sovereignty over ownership, and public accountability through audited transparency. The fact that others are leaving makes the market less crowded, not less useful.

Is Pyratz Corp. stock tradable right now?

Yes. Trading in MLPTZ (ISIN FR0013371507) on Euronext Access resumed following completion of the post-reverse-takeover re-listing, approved on 29 June 2026. The official announcement is on the Press page.

What is Pyratz’s listing roadmap?

Euronext Access is the first step. The plan is to raise capital through an IPO and move up to Euronext Growth in the first half of 2027, with a UCITS licence and a first asset-management fund both expected in Q4 2026.

Follow the listing journey and regulated announcements on our Investor Relations and Going public pages, or read the companion thesis on why ownership location matters in Sovereign by design.

This is not investment advice. As with any listed equity, investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital; specific factors include low liquidity on Euronext Access and the early stage of many portfolio companies. Rely on official regulated information and, where appropriate, seek independent advice.