Independent Brokers Drive Private Secondaries
Noel Moldvai and Adam Crawley, co-founders of Augment, on software-enabled secondaries markets
This reveals that private stock trading is still a broker network business first, and a software marketplace second. In practice, many of the people who actually move blocks of stock are relationship driven brokers who bring buyers and sellers they already know, then use software to compare bids, message counterparties, and push paperwork forward faster. Augment is designed around that reality, by serving the brokers who already control flow instead of trying to replace them with an in house salesforce.
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The economic pull is simple. Platform broker payouts had fallen from 50%+ to around 25%, while independent broker-dealers could let brokers keep 70% to 90% of commissions. That shifts the best producers, and their client relationships, away from closed platforms and into independent shops.
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This fits the broader market structure. Even as software platforms grew, most secondaries still happened through handshake deals, emails, and brokered introductions. Earlier research noted that software venues had not displaced one to one brokering, and later interviews described the market as still fundamentally bilateral and brokered.
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The strategic implication for Augment is that broker software is the wedge. If independent brokers already carry institutional order flow, then tools for order books, client portals, KYC, issuer notices, and closing workflows can attract liquidity first, and only later turn that activity into a more exchange like market.
Where this heads next is toward a private market stack that looks less like a single winner take all exchange and more like broker infrastructure connected to issuer tools and data. The platforms that win will be the ones that make independent brokers faster, keep issuers comfortable, and gradually turn fragmented relationship flow into repeatable, software driven trading.