Key Takeaways
- Private markets are larger as a percentage of total investment opportunity than at any prior point.
- The retail investor's access to private markets has expanded significantly in the past decade.
- The private market company that would have gone public in 2010 stays private longer in 2026.
Saim Abbasi has spent more than a decade building companies, investing in founders, and operating across global markets. The perspective here on the private markets opportunity in 2026 comes directly from that experience rather than from theory.
The Core Insight
The current landscape of private market investment and where the opportunity lies. This question surfaces regularly in conversations with founders and investors at Iron Key Capital, in the SA Media content, and in the global business relationships Saim has built. The answer changes depending on context but the framework for approaching it does not.
What This Means in Practice
Entrepreneurs and global businessmen who have operated across multiple markets develop a pattern recognition about this topic that single-market operators rarely develop. Saim Abbasi's experience founding SA Capital, building OptionsSwing, listing Asset Entities on NASDAQ, and now running Iron Key Capital gives him a vantage point that covers company building from first idea through public markets. The founders who navigate this area well tend to internalize the principles described in the key takeaways above and apply them consistently rather than situationally.
"The best private market opportunities are in the companies that are choosing to stay private."