Zanbato vs Nasdaq Private Market
Zanbato
This rivalry is really about who becomes the default operating system for large private share trades. Zanbato is built around institutions and broker dealers finding blocks of stock and moving them quickly, while Nasdaq Private Market is pushing toward the same buyer with a more packaged venue, lower posted pricing, and Nasdaq branded market data and settlement rails. That makes NPM the cleanest head to head competitor when the trade is large, negotiated, and workflow heavy.
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Zanbato sits in the institutional lane of private stock trading, not the issuer run tender lane alone. Prior research describes it as a marketplace for institutional investors trading through broker dealers, and industry interviews place it alongside other tech enabled venues that help buyers check where stock is trading and execute quickly.
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NPM has moved closer to Zanbato with its September 19, 2024 relaunch of SecondMarket. The product adds electronic negotiation tools, watchlists, portfolio uploads, and proprietary settlement technology, then prices the service at a flat 1% commission. That is a direct pitch to institutions that want software and execution in one place.
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Forge is adjacent but structurally broader. It pairs trading with a separate data subscription business, Forge Intelligence, which sells historical trade, IOI, and pricing data. That gives Forge a second revenue stream and a data flywheel, while the Zanbato versus NPM contest is more narrowly about winning institutional trade flow and the broker relationships around it.
The next phase is a land grab for private market infrastructure. As more private companies stay private longer and more large holders need liquidity between funding rounds and IPOs, the winners will be the platforms that combine broker distribution, clean settlement, and credible pricing data. That favors venues like Zanbato and NPM that are built for repeat institutional workflows, not one off access products.