As private companies seek controlled liquidity and investors seek access, exchanges, specialist operators, and technology providers are building services around private shares
Vested shares can be a meaningful part of an employee’s compensation yet remain difficult to convert to cash while a company remains private. Moneybox completed a £45 million permissioned auction for long-serving employees; Wayve provided liquidity to current employees with vested equity through an auction on the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market. In response to transactions like these, exchanges and specialist operators are developing venues; Forge Global is combining a private-share marketplace with pricing data, and Secondary Suite is providing infrastructure for firms managing market information, relationships, and transaction workflows. The activity points to a broader trend – Nasdaq Private Market estimates tender offers across the market reached $35 billion in 2025 and says 60% of its own programs were oversubscribed.
Different Players, Different Models
The LSE’s Private Securities Market is part of the UK’s PISCES framework, which allows private-company shares to trade in intermittent events. Companies can set participation conditions, creating a way to organize share transactions without a public listing. The FCA has approved the LSE and specialist operators JP Jenkins, Asset Match and Vestd. Their entry suggests that private-share trading may develop through several kinds of venues, with exchanges and specialist firms testing how best to serve issuers and investors.
Nasdaq Private Market represents a broader platform model, offering company-sponsored liquidity programs, a marketplace, settlement services and market data. NPM spun out from Nasdaq, Inc. in 2021, and it operates as a separate company. These different approaches reflect the range of services developing around private shares: some firms focus on the venue or marketplace, while others support the operations needed to manage transactions.
What Clients Need from the Market
For an employee with vested shares, a sale depends on more than finding a buyer. The company may need to approve the transfer, set participation rules, provide information, and manage the transaction through settlement. It may also want to offer liquidity without losing control of its shareholder base. Investors need enough context to evaluate an opportunity and its terms; brokers and advisers need to connect clients to suitable transactions and guide them through the process.
Investor interest is also building across private markets more broadly. Hamilton Lane’s survey of 390 private-wealth professionals found that 86% planned to increase private-market investments in 2026. The survey does not measure demand for direct purchases of private-company shares, but it suggests advisers are increasingly helping clients consider private-market opportunities.
For issuers, structured liquidity can give employees or other shareholders a route to sell while the company remains private. For investors, organized trading events and marketplaces can make opportunities easier to find and evaluate. Brokers and other intermediaries help connect the two sides, assess eligibility, and coordinate the steps needed to complete a transaction.
The Infrastructure Behind Participation
Each transaction relies on work that can be difficult to coordinate across separate systems and organizations. Market information may be fragmented; counterparties must be identified and qualified; and communications, documents, and transaction progress must be managed. Those demands apply to exchanges and specialist operators, as well as brokers, data providers and other firms serving the same clients.
This is where, for example, Secondary Suite fits: in the operational infrastructure behind private-share activity. By connecting market information, participant relationships and transaction workflows, platforms like it can help intermediaries and other market participants manage transactions alongside their existing services.
In conclusion, exchanges can bring venue experience and issuer relationships; specialist operators can develop focused trading models; marketplaces can connect buyers and sellers; and infrastructure providers can support the work around transactions. How well these services meet the needs of private companies, investors and intermediaries will shape the market’s next stage.
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