In recent weeks, a lot of ink has been spilled criticizing Stripe, a darling of the VC world, for missing its opportunity to go public when the IPO window was wide open. Despite grabbing a valuation of $95 billion in March 2021—a more than 2.6x step-up from the $36 billion it was worth the year prior—the payments company seemed to be in no hurry to float its stock. Stripe is not alone. "Privately held companies that are over $3 [billion] to $5 billion in value—a lot of them have this problem," said Cisco Palao-Ricketts, ERISA & Executive Compensation partner. There are no good solutions or silver bullets for this issue, Palao-Ricketts tells PitchBook.