137 Ventures’ 2014 fund surges to over 8x original investment on SpaceX bet

Patience isn’t usually the first word associated with venture capital. But 137 Ventures just made a compelling case for the slow play. The San Francisco-based firm’s 2014 vintage fund, which closed at $137 million, is now valued at more than eight times its original size, putting it north of $1.1 billion. The primary engine behind that performance: SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company that went public in June 2026 at an eye-watering valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion. How a liquidity firm became a SpaceX whale 137 Ventures isn’t your typical venture fund. Founded by Justin Fishner-Wolfson and partners in the early 2010s, the firm carved out a niche that most VCs ignore entirely. Rather than writing early checks into fledgling startups, 137 Ventures provides structured liquidity solutions, essentially offering loans against private-company equity and facilitating secondary share purchases for founders, employees, and early shareholders of long-private tech companies. The firm first started acquiring SpaceX shares back in 2011, when the rocket maker’s valuation hovered around $1 billion. Over the years, 137 Ventures kept buying, never once liquidating its position in the...