Today, Wayve announced an $85 million employee tender offer at an $8.6 billion valuation. Simultaneously, it has filed to auction shares on the London Stock Exchange's new Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES) with a trade scheduled for 8 July. The same day, we are watching a growing queue of would be AIM and main market floats including Boots, Visma, Loveholidays shelved, delayed by geopolitical volatility and weak sentiment.

The juxtaposition is striking, and uncomfortable.

Wayve is arguably the most credible AI company the UK has produced. Backed by SoftBank, Nvidia, Uber, Microsoft and Mercedes-Benz, developing genuinely frontier technology in embodied AI and autonomous driving, it is precisely the kind of name that should anchor a London IPO. Instead, it is pioneering a new private market structure that, by design, keeps it out of public hands.

As someone who has spent years arguing that AIM can be a home for high-growth technology companies, I find this moment clarifying rather than discouraging. PISCES is not the enemy of public markets. Used well, we should look at it as a staging post, a way for companies like Wayve to provide employee liquidity and price discovery without the full regulatory burden of a listing before they are ready.

But the risk is real. If PISCES becomes a permanent substitute rather than a bridge, early backers get their exit and the pressure to float evaporates. The pipeline thins further.

The UK needs Wayve on a public market eventually. The question is whether PISCES builds the runway to get there, or simply removes the urgency to try.