Neostellar, a fund holding OpenAI and VAST Data, values itself at $12.64 a share; the market pays $5.76
The only listed fund holding VAST Data, OpenAI and WHOOP reported $12.64 of net asset value per share; the stock changed hands near $5.76. The gap is the market auditing private AI marks in real time.
Vincent Jiangthree-minute read
Neostellar Capital (NSLR), a business development company, a Nasdaq-listed fund that buys stakes in private venture-backed firms, told investors on November 3 that its assets were worth $12.64 a share 13. Four days later the stock traded near $5.76 1. A closed-end fund's book is only as good as its marks, and this week the market put its own price on those marks: about 46 cents for a manager-certified dollar 1.
The fund, externally managed by Neostellar Advisors, a joint venture with Magnetar, holds 34 companies including OpenAI$1.18T — OpenAI, private, latest valuation $1.18T, VAST Data~$9.1B — VAST Data, private, latest valuation ~$9.1B, CoreWeave+6.23% — CoreWeave, up 6.23 percent today, TensorWave, ClickHouse and WHOOP 34. Its September 30 net assets were $334.7 million, down from $13.44 to $12.64 per share in the quarter 3. A year earlier NAV was $9.23, so book value rose even as the shares fell roughly 55% in four months 1.
The prints are running below the marks
The mechanism is WHOOP. The fitness company, 38% of the portfolio at $143.3 million, was cut because real secondary-market buyers paid less than the March round's $10.1 billion valuation 14.
Exits confirmed the gap: Learneo sold for $9.4 million against a roughly $5.6 million realized loss, and Aventine and Catona were written off 34. Neostellar chairman and CEO Mark Klein said the March financing does not independently set the value of the specific shares the fund owns 4. Notably, VAST Data, held through a Series B preferred stake worth $34.0 million, was not among the names marked down 3. Its test has not come yet.
What VAST announced the same week
VAST Data's own November 5 release claims more than $10 billion in aggregate commitments this year from 14 customers, four over $1 billion each, 9 of the top 10 frontier labs on its platform, and over 200 exabytes of flash supply locked through 2029 2.
Commitments are not cash; they are the demand case for a $30 billion private valuation 2. This builds on The Inference's November 1 piece, which reported VAST's founders' case that debt-free private companies can wait out an IPO 2. What is new since: the $10 billion commitments release, and the first public mark on this class of paper from the one listed fund that holds it 2.
WHOOP alone is 38% of Neostellar's portfolio
Five names are nearly three quarters of the book, and the largest was just marked down
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WHOOP | 143.3 |
| OpenAI (via ARK fund) | 59.4 |
| VAST Data (via IH10) | 34 |
| TensorWave (via Magnetar SPV) | 20.4 |
| Blink Health | 13.1 |
The fund's own cash plan comes before any buyback
Klein has $40.9 million in cash, and the 6.00% notes due December 30 get repaid first; he called retiring that debt "paramount" 34. Only after monetizations free up cash does the $25 million buyback, extended to October 2027, get deployed, and only if shares keep trading at a substantial discount to NAV 13. A $20 million Magnetar note converts to stock after a $230 million raise, a dilution clause that hangs over any large financing 3.
Two clocks now tick on the same paper
VAST counts commitments; the market counts prints. Watch the year-end debt payoff and the next WHOOP secondary print: those, not the press release, price the book.
NAV rose to $12.64 while the traded price sank to $7.69 and then $5.76
Book value rose over the year while the traded price fell below it
- NAV per share
- Market price at period end
Data
| NAV per share | Market price at period end | |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 9.23 | 9 |
| Jun 2026 | 13.44 | — |
| Sep 2026 | 12.64 | 7.69 |
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