Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing, Sacra

Sacra

Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing

Bringing transparency to private markets so investors, founders, and employees can build on conviction. Sacra delivers deeply researched insights on the private companies shaping tomorrow's markets. By surfacing the data, context, and operator perspective that are missing from private markets today, we help secondary buyers and sellers price equity accurately and unlock liquidity for the people building these businesses.

Private Capital Markets

<ul><li>The EU loosening restrictions on on-chain stock trading and the SEC signalling its new-found enthusiasm for tokenization, along with more consumer-friendly crypto wallet UX and now near-zero transaction fees on Solana & Ethereum, have kicked off the tokenization of equities—starting with public companies, with Coinbase & Kraken launching always-on, fractional blockchain versions of Apple and Tesla stock that can be traded 24/7 outside of the U.S.</li><li>To tokenize private stock, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) buys up the underlying shares of e.g. OpenAI or Canva—or acquires an interest in an SPV that does—and then a blockchain token is issued that represents a proportional, non-voting interest in that SPV, enabling investors to get exposure to private stocks without needing issuer cap-table approval.</li><li>With different approaches fragmenting along regulatory regimes and blockchains, Republic operates in the US under Reg CF rules that cap investments at $5K and enforce a year-long lockup, while in Europe, Robinhood’s tokens (under MiFID-II) trade only on Robinhood’s L2 blockchain and can’t be traded to other wallets or platforms, while PreStocks’s Solana tokens (under Reg S) can flow into any Solana exchange, wallet, or DeFi app.</li></ul>

The EU loosening restrictions on on-chain stock trading and the SEC signalling its new-found enthusiasm for tokenization, along with more consumer-friendly crypto wallet UX and now near-zero transaction fees on Solana & Ethereum, have kicked off the tokenization of equities—starting with public companies, with Coinbase & Kraken launching always-on, fractional blockchain versions of Apple and Tesla stock that can be traded 24/7 outside of the U.S.To tokenize private stock, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) buys up the underlying shares of e.g. OpenAI or Canva—or acquires an interest in an SPV that does—and then a blockchain token is issued that represents a proportional, non-voting interest in that SPV, enabling investors to get exposure to private stocks without needing issuer cap-table approval.With different approaches fragmenting along regulatory regimes and blockchains, Republic operates in the US under Reg CF rules that cap investments at $5K and enforce a year-long lockup, while in Europe, Robinhood’s tokens (under MiFID-II) trade only on Robinhood’s L2 blockchain and can’t be traded to other wallets or platforms, while PreStocks’s Solana tokens (under Reg S) can flow into any Solana exchange, wallet, or DeFi app.

Xavier Ekkel, Founder Of PreStocks, On 24/7 Tokenized pre-IPO Stock

<ul><li>EquityZen raised $6.5 million in total funding through 2017, with their most recent Series A round of $3 million led by Draper Associates in July 2017.</li><li>EquityZen is a two-sided online marketplace that connects employees and early shareholders in late-stage private companies who want liquidity with accredited investors seeking pre-IPO exposure.</li><li>The platform has grown to 710,000+ registered users as of March 2025, benefiting from the SEC's 2024 broadened accredited investor definition that enlarged the addressable US investor pool by approximately 13%.</li></ul>

EquityZen raised $6.5 million in total funding through 2017, with their most recent Series A round of $3 million led by Draper Associates in July 2017.EquityZen is a two-sided online marketplace that connects employees and early shareholders in late-stage private companies who want liquidity with accredited investors seeking pre-IPO exposure.The platform has grown to 710,000+ registered users as of March 2025, benefiting from the SEC's 2024 broadened accredited investor definition that enlarged the addressable US investor pool by approximately 13%.

<ul><li>Carta's decision to get out of the secondaries business appeared to happen quickly, but it was the end product of years of internal deliberation over the best way for Carta to unlock liquidity in the ecosystem while maintaining alignment with their customers.</li><li>Because Carta is a system of record and controls the cap table for ~35% of venture-backed startups, it will still be a crucial player in facilitating secondary sales—the decision to get out of the secondaries business has more to do with whether they want to broker deals themselves or let other companies do the dirty work.</li><li>Ultimately, the ecosystem does still need liquidity as private companies progress from the "heads down and build" stage where being private is about control, and towards the pre-IPO stage where liquidity relieves the pressure to go public.</li></ul>

Carta's decision to get out of the secondaries business appeared to happen quickly, but it was the end product of years of internal deliberation over the best way for Carta to unlock liquidity in the ecosystem while maintaining alignment with their customers.Because Carta is a system of record and controls the cap table for ~35% of venture-backed startups, it will still be a crucial player in facilitating secondary sales—the decision to get out of the secondaries business has more to do with whether they want to broker deals themselves or let other companies do the dirty work.Ultimately, the ecosystem does still need liquidity as private companies progress from the "heads down and build" stage where being private is about control, and towards the pre-IPO stage where liquidity relieves the pressure to go public.

<ul><li>Noel Moldvai and Adam Crawley are the co-founders of Augment.</li><li>Augment solves lead gen by being a platform, but also opens it up to the broader ecosystem, allowing these independent brokers to be able to capture a larger audience, and do more deals.</li><li>Our ATS went live in July and gave us the freedom to push harder.</li></ul>

Noel Moldvai and Adam Crawley are the co-founders of Augment.Augment solves lead gen by being a platform, but also opens it up to the broader ecosystem, allowing these independent brokers to be able to capture a larger audience, and do more deals.Our ATS went live in July and gave us the freedom to push harder.

Noel Moldvai And Adam Crawley, co-founders Of Augment, On software-enabled Secondaries Markets

<ul><li>The first big secondary trading platform, SecondMarket, launched in 2009 and did $100M in transaction volume, growing to $360M in 2010 and $558M in 2011.</li><li>Now, we’re seeing the emergence of a new atomic unit of value that companies like AngelList, Carta, Sydecar and Allocations are going after—LP interests in funds and SPVs.</li><li>LP interests in funds and SPVs have the potential to unlock private markets liquidity because they sit on top of the cap table and can be traded permissionlessly, without company approval.</li></ul>

The first big secondary trading platform, SecondMarket, launched in 2009 and did $100M in transaction volume, growing to $360M in 2010 and $558M in 2011.Now, we’re seeing the emergence of a new atomic unit of value that companies like AngelList, Carta, Sydecar and Allocations are going after—LP interests in funds and SPVs.LP interests in funds and SPVs have the potential to unlock private markets liquidity because they sit on top of the cap table and can be traded permissionlessly, without company approval.

Sydecar And The New Atomic Unit Of The Private Markets

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Marketplace for institutional investors to trade private company stock via broker-dealers

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Xavier Ekkel, Founder Of PreStocks, On 24/7 Tokenized pre-IPO Stock

Before PreStocks, you were a software engineer at Canva. Did your experience at Canva inspire you to start PreStocks...

Sacra

Primer: EquityZen - 14 Jul 2025

Marketplace for buying and selling pre-IPO shares in late-stage private companies

Sacra

Carta And The Future Of Liquidity

First, Karri Saarinen from Linear tweeted a screenshot of a Carta sales rep reaching out to a Linear investor to gauge their interest in selling...

Sacra

Noel Moldvai And Adam Crawley, co-founders Of Augment, On software-enabled Secondaries Markets

What is Augment? What inspired you to build it...

Sacra

Sydecar And The New Atomic Unit Of The Private Markets

LP interests in SPVs are the next frontier, taking over from the cap table as the atomic unit of the private markets. Read our interviews...

Sacra

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