Monark raised $2.2 million in a seed round in October 2024, bringing total funding to $3.6 million across two rounds since 2022. The seed round included participation from Garuda Ventures, K50 Ventures, Grit Capital Partners, Niche Capital, and individual investors Nik Talreja and Shriram Bhashyam.

Monark is a B2B API infrastructure platform that allows retail brokerages and wealth management firms to integrate private market investments into their existing apps.

Investors can use their existing brokerage account cash balances to invest in pre-IPO companies such as SpaceX and OpenAI, private equity funds, and real estate, eliminating the need to open separate accounts on alternative investment platforms.

The platform manages the entire workflow, including investor suitability checks, trade execution, and post-trade reporting. When a brokerage integrates Monark's API, customers can browse private offerings, complete accreditation verification, and invest with minimal effort.

All money movement occurs automatically in the background, with investments settling and appearing on standard brokerage statements alongside public market holdings.

Monark operates an alternative trading system through MMM Securities LLC, its FINRA-registered broker-dealer subsidiary, which consolidates liquidity across integrated platforms.

The company supports both the primary issuance of new private securities and the secondary trading of existing positions. Through partnerships, such as its collaboration with Sydecar, Monark also facilitates SPV origination and administration, managing processes from fund formation to ongoing cap table maintenance.

Monark operates as a B2B2C infrastructure provider, selling APIs to brokerages, clearing firms, and wealth management platforms rather than serving retail investors directly.

This model leverages existing distribution networks, avoiding the high customer acquisition costs associated with direct-to-consumer alternative investment platforms.

The company generates revenue through a commission-sharing model on private market transactions. When investors pay the standard 3-5% upfront management fee on private investments, Monark splits the remaining revenue after administrative expenses with brokerage partners, typically on a 50-50 basis. This structure offers brokerages a way to offset revenue losses from zero-commission stock trading.

Monark's vertically integrated operations include ownership of a broker-dealer license and an alternative trading system, enabling control over trade execution and settlement.

The company manages compliance, marketing support, and ongoing customer education for partner platforms, which often lack expertise in private markets. Its usage-based revenue model, tied to transaction volume rather than subscription fees, lowers the barrier for partners to justify integration costs.

The business benefits from network effects as additional brokerages join the platform, increasing liquidity pools for secondary trading and expanding distribution reach for issuers. This scaling advantage enhances Monark's ability to access higher-quality private investment opportunities compared to smaller direct-to-consumer platforms.

iCapital presents a significant competitive challenge with $214 billion in platform assets under management and over 1,600 employees across 17 global offices.

The company's 2025 acquisition of Parallel Markets provides reusable investor onboarding and KYC capabilities that directly overlap with Monark's custodian integration offerings. iCapital's ability to expose APIs directly to clearing brokers introduces the risk of disrupting Monark's distribution channel, while its established relationships with over 1,600 wealth management firms create high switching costs.

CAIS has targeted the infrastructure layer with a new SaaS platform enabling advisors to upload legacy alternative investments and manage post-trade operations regardless of asset origin.

Their fee-cutting strategy, which reduces some feeder fund fees to as low as 5 basis points, exerts margin pressure across the industry and could challenge Monark's commission-sharing model. Additionally, CAIS integrates Mercer diligence and training programs, capabilities that Monark does not currently offer.

Addepar's transition from portfolio reporting to alternative data management and trading marks a direct competitive move into Monark's domain.

With over 1,000 RIA and family office clients already utilizing its platform, Addepar could expand subscription and workflow features to bypass Monark entirely. Its 2025 product launches, including automated alternative data management and AI-driven compliance tools, aim to capture more of the private markets value chain.

Envestnet's extensive distribution network, which serves thousands of advisors, provides a structural advantage in bundling private market access with existing wealth management tools.

As data-centric platforms like Envestnet incorporate execution capabilities, they increase the risk of commoditizing the infrastructure-focused model that Monark relies on.

Zanbato's focus on pre-IPO secondary markets directly competes with Monark's most in-demand product category. This specialization enables deeper relationships with late-stage private companies and potentially more competitive pricing for secondary transactions.

Alpaca's expansion from crypto APIs into broader alternative assets demonstrates how adjacent infrastructure providers can leverage existing broker-dealer relationships and technical expertise to enter Monark's market.

Monark's partnership with Sydecar expands its capabilities beyond pre-IPO stocks to include comprehensive SPV lifecycle management. This enables the origination, administration, and trading of interests in private credit, real estate, infrastructure, and sports teams.

As a result, the addressable market extends from single-asset secondaries to the broader spectrum of alternative investments. By offering fractional exposures in the $5,000–$25,000 range, Monark provides access to mass-affluent investors who were previously excluded due to high minimum investment thresholds.

The registered fund product line incorporates continuously raising vehicles from firms such as Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo, which generate steady deal flow compared to the episodic nature of pre-IPO opportunities.

These evergreen products support more predictable revenue streams and cater to investors seeking diversified exposure rather than single-name investments.

The partnership with ViewTrade integrates Monark's APIs into over 300 brokerage and fintech platforms across 30 countries, significantly increasing its potential customer base without requiring direct sales efforts.

This B2B distribution model capitalizes on existing relationships and regulatory approvals that would otherwise take years to establish independently.

Custodian partnerships with firms such as Apex, Altruist, and Interactive Brokers provide an additional growth channel as these platforms expand their support for alternative investments on behalf of broker-dealer clients.

Monark's broker-dealer license and ATS infrastructure offer custodians a ready-made solution for private markets, eliminating the need for in-house capability development.

ViewTrade's global footprint facilitates Monark's entry into markets across Latin America, MENA, and APAC, where regulators permit accredited-only private placements.

This geographic diversification reduces reliance on US market conditions while addressing rising international demand for exposure to US private companies.

In Europe, regulatory changes such as ELTIF 2.0 create opportunities to combine US deal flow with EU-compliant investment structures, unlocking a region with historically low portfolio allocations to alternative assets.

This regulatory arbitrage positions Monark to connect US private markets with international capital.

Regulatory constraints: The 99-investor cap on SPVs imposes scarcity that restricts Monark's ability to lower minimum investment thresholds and expand access. Proposed legislation could increase this limit to 2,000 investors per vehicle, but delays or changes in regulatory processes may hinder growth in the core pre-IPO market. Changes to SEC rules governing private market access for retail investors could either expand or limit Monark's addressable market, depending on their direction.

Platform disintermediation: Large brokerages such as Robinhood, Schwab, and Fidelity possess the resources and regulatory infrastructure to develop private market capabilities internally, reducing reliance on third-party APIs. As private investing becomes more standardized, these platforms may opt to retain the full commission stream rather than share it with Monark, particularly for high-volume transactions.

Asset quality selection: Monark's lack of scale and established relationships, compared to incumbents like iCapital, may limit access to top-tier private investment opportunities that drive investor demand. If the platform becomes associated with lower-quality deals that fail to secure traditional distribution, it risks creating an adverse selection issue that could weaken its value proposition for both investors and brokerage partners.