Scaling Private Markets Through Brokerages
Ben Haber, CEO of Monark, on building the DTCC for the private markets
The core lesson is that private market access scales when it rides on top of existing brokerage distribution, not when every platform has to win consumers one by one. Monark is built around plugging private assets into brokerage and wealth apps where investors already keep cash and trade, because direct platforms face high acquisition costs, fragmented demand, weaker asset supply, and the burden of asking investors to use yet another financial app.
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Direct platforms have a two sided cold start problem. They need to spend heavily to acquire investors, while also convincing issuers to bring their best deals before real demand exists. Monark avoids that by distributing through brokerages and RIAs that already have customer relationships and funded accounts.
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When D2C alt platforms fail to reach scale, asset quality suffers. Ben Haber points to adverse selection, where the best issuers go elsewhere and smaller platforms are left with weaker inventory. That pattern showed up across earlier private share marketplaces, where fragmented liquidity and broker driven deal flow limited consistent price discovery.
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The winning workflow is simpler for the investor. Monark lets a brokerage user invest from an existing account balance, with reporting and in some cases custody integrated into the same statement. That is much easier than opening a separate account on a standalone alt investing app and managing holdings across multiple systems.
Going forward, private market infrastructure is likely to look more like embedded market plumbing than a consumer destination. The companies that matter most will be the ones that control distribution, custody, reporting, and issuer trust across many brokerages at once, which is why Monark is positioning itself closer to a clearing layer than a storefront.