Broker-First OS for Secondaries

The real opening in private secondaries is not another marketplace, it is the operating system behind the broker. Most volume still moves through brokers, but many of those workflows are still stitched together with email, spreadsheets, PDFs, and manual follow ups. That means the bottleneck is not just finding a buyer, it is managing order books, KYC, issuer notices, cap table restrictions, and closing steps fast enough that deals do not fall apart.

• The market is large enough for infrastructure to matter. Roughly $30 billion of private shares were already changing hands annually in 2020, but most transactions were still broker driven and manual, with software platforms not yet replacing one to one broker workflows.
  2 sacra
• The broker is still central because big buyers usually want large blocks and high touch execution. Independent brokers carry relationships, source supply, and move institutional volume, but their economics have been squeezed, which creates demand for software that helps them close more deals with less headcount.
  1 sacra 4 sacra
• Competitors have mostly attacked one slice of the workflow. Carta and Nasdaq Private Market focus on issuer run programs and tenders. Forge and EquityZen help smaller blocks and pooled vehicles. The gap is broker first tooling that handles matching, client management, diligence, execution, and issuer coordination in one place.
  1 sacra 2 sacra 3 sacra 4 sacra

The next phase of the market should look less like replacing brokers and more like making each broker dramatically more productive. As secondaries become more frequent and companies stay private longer, the winners should be the platforms that turn slow bespoke trades into repeatable software workflows, and in doing so expand total market liquidity rather than just taking share from existing desks.