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Welcome back! For 15 years, Goldman Sachs’ private tech conference in Las Vegas has been the event for taking the pulse of startup dealmaking. Years ago, it was possible to run into founders such as Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom raising money for their then-small startups. The conference is much bigger now (which makes some investors grumble), but it remains a nexus for investors who want to throw money at hot startups—and forgotten founders trying to remind investors they exist. The hundreds of tech bankers and investors hustling past the humanoid robot display through a labyrinth of meeting rooms this week offered a striking snapshot of how eclectic the industry has gotten. One minute you’re talking to a founder whose startup makes hypersonic engines for satellites, the next you’re learning about a robotic cat litter box company. (Business is good because “cats always need to poop,” I was told.) And, of course, there were consumer apps (Strava), chip companies (Groq) and developer toolmakers (Clickhouse), which were all flooded with investor meeting requests. The hallways are also full of secondaries buyers trying to grab stock from other investors, investor relations consultants, lowly tech reporters, and even cabinet secretaries from the first Trump administration. (I walked behind former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as he strode out of the conference.) Now that the conference has reached high school age, here are my yearbook superlatives for this year’s show: Hottest company: Kalshi. Fittingly at a conference where slot machines are often 100 yards away, the prediction markets site was the star of the show. CEO Tarek Mansour, a former Goldman intern, got a prime speaking spot and told prospective investors the startup was still figuring out basic questions like how to set fees for individual traders and institutional firms. “Fees aren’t really optimized yet. The business was small last year. Now it’s big,” he said. Nonetheless, the startup’s executives told investors behind closed doors it had grown trading volume six times in the last six months, and was on an annualized pace for between $600 million and $700 million in net revenue, even as it only spent a tiny fraction of that on marketing. This growth likely explains the investor rush. Kalshi is raising money at an $11 billion valuation from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, attendees told me. The discussions come on the heels of an investment co-led by Andreessen that valued it at $5 billion, as my colleagues first reported. Best banker IPO marketing: Jane Dunlevie, Goldman Sachs’ chief operating officer of tech investment banking. Dunlevie, onstage giving the conference’s opening presentation as attendees dug into their almond croissant French toast, stood in front of a slide that declared there would be “an unprecedented wave of IPOs in 2026 and 2027.” Bankers’ initial public offering predictions have had a mixed record lately. This year, despite high hopes, will be another below-average year for listings. Dunlevie argued that at least some of the eight $50-billion-plus private companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and so on) will finally go public soon because there’s so much more money to grab in the public markets from individual investors and index funds. “While institutional shareholders are incredibly important, they represent only a quarter of many large companies’ registers,” meaning their shareholder bases, she said. “Access to retail and access to index are important to demand and valuation in public markets.” Best dressed: Ivan Zhao, CEO of collaboration app Notion. Zhao, looking like a design studio’s creative director, sat onstage with a dark, Japanese-designed Blue Blue Japan suit, a contrast with the crowd’s sweater vests and chinos. The Sequoia Capital–backed firm, valued in 2021 at $10 billion, has been quiet about IPO and fundraising plans lately, so his presence at the conference was notable. He seems to be trying to cast Notion as one of the top AI wrapper companies. He said the 12-year-old company, which sells sleek collaboration software that uses chatbots to automate some office work, has succeeded in convincing customers to buy the new features. He said this year that in “more than half of new sales, customers opt in to AI pricing. More customers want Notion with AI than without.” Most forgotten company worth remembering: Faire. The wholesale marketplace was a pandemic startup darling before it experienced a slowdown and a valuation haircut. Executives told investors at the conference that annualized revenue rose 43% in the third quarter, to a pace of $507 million. A fact sheet Faire handed out to investors painted a comeback story of sorts, after growth barely topped 30% last year. And the sheet said the magic words for investors: “accelerating growth.” Most in-demand sector: Cybersecurity. Of the 12 companies that received more than 100 requests for meetings from investors (according to Goldman), cybersecurity was the most well represented. Those companies included Abnormal AI, which sells email security tools; browser maker Island; and compliance automation startup Vanta. Biggest elephant in the room: IPO flops from StubHub and Navan. Both companies have traded below their IPO price since they went public in recent weeks, a foreboding sign for many of the aspiring IPO contenders in attendance. I witnessed a lot of finger pointing from investors who lost money. Best event for glad-handing investors: SoftBank-backed travel experiences startup GetYourGuide got investors into a VIP box at the Sphere’s immersive “Wizard of Oz” showing. We’ll see if that helps when it goes public. (What may improve its odds more: It has said it’s profitable, with more than $1 billion in revenue.) Best event for glad-handing clients: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon’s private dinner at the swanky restaurant Delilah. Solomon, his bankers, and VIP conference attendees like Andreessen Horowitz crypto champion Chris Dixon and Groq CEO Jonathan Ross discussed the topics of the day: AI’s impact on jobs, America versus Europe, and incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. | 
