Post by Gero Schomann

I attended PE Insights Poland & CEE in Warsaw for the first time and left genuinely impressed. The CEE region continues to gain momentum within private markets and is becoming increasingly relevant for Stableton. What I found particularly encouraging was how open many investors were to new investment themes, innovation driven business models and differentiated approaches to private market investing. What stood out most: private tech valuations in light of the upcoming SpaceX IPO. I was genuinely surprised by how strongly the anticipated SpaceX IPO is influencing investor discussions around late stage private technology companies and private market valuations more broadly. As realistic IPO scenarios come into focus, investors increasingly appear to evaluate these businesses against public market comparables and their underlying fundamentals rather than viewing them purely through a private markets lens. What's interesting is that in some areas of AI and tech, public market valuations have become so stretched that certain late-stage private blue-chip tech companies suddenly look more understandable (and in some cases more attractive) relative to listed comps. This also raises a bigger question: How much tech value creation now happens before IPO rather than *after* listing? Beyond this, there were many interesting conversations around private equity, evergreen structures, semi liquid solutions and scalable approaches to private technology investing. Great connecting with familiar faces and meeting new ones throughout my time in Warsaw, particularly Alexander von Wolffradt, Christoph Pelzmann, Marc Schiedermeier, CEFA, CIIA, CESGA, Moritz Mondovits, Ofelia Massango, Yu Zhang, CFA, Dr. Alexander Hütteroth, Martin Folmer and Lars Zimmermann. Looking forward to continuing many of these conversations over the coming months.