EquityZen

EquityZen operates a marketplace connecting shareholders of private, venture-backed companies — typically employees and early investors — with accredited investors seeking exposure to specific pre-IPO names, facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in trades annually.

Rather than transferring shares directly, EquityZen commonly structures a sale through a single-company special purpose vehicle, letting a buyer gain indirect economic exposure to one company's stock with buyer minimums typically in the $10,000-$20,000 range.

The platform has remained an independent, venture-backed fintech company rather than being acquired by a larger financial institution, positioning itself as an alternative to bank-owned or broker-owned marketplaces like Forge (now Schwab-owned) and Nasdaq Private Market.

EquityZen provides access to pre-IPO company shares mainly through fund vehicles: rather than transferring shares directly to each buyer, investors typically subscribe to a special purpose vehicle that holds the position. The structure exists because direct transfers are administratively heavy and often restricted by the company.

Sellers are usually employees and early shareholders; buyers are accredited individuals who could not otherwise reach these companies. The fund-wrapper mechanic is the part most often misunderstood — as a buyer you generally own an interest in a vehicle that holds shares, not the shares themselves, which affects information rights, fees and what happens at an exit.

Technology-driven marketplaces that match buyers and sellers of private shares and standardize the paperwork. They intermediate transactions; they are not themselves buyers of the positions they list.

This site groups buyers into four categories, because the category tells you more about how a firm behaves than its size does. See the rest of themarketplace & platformgroup in the directory.