Time Arbitrage in Private Markets
Ani Banerjee, co-founder of Andromeda Group, on secondary diligence and companies staying private
Time arbitrage matters because private company stock is often held by people who need cash on very different schedules, not because they disagree on the company. An employee who has waited 10 years may want to sell to buy a house or diversify, while a sovereign wealth fund or pension fund can hold for another decade. A structured secondary market makes that handoff easier, so liquidity comes from matching time horizons instead of forcing an IPO or a one off tender.
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In the traditional private secondary market, deals are slow and bespoke. Buyers chase brokers, negotiate discounts to the last round, clear ROFRs, and wait weeks for paperwork, during which public comps can move and break the trade. A platform auction reduces that timing friction.
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CartaX was designed around recurring issuer run auctions. Companies choose who can buy, what gets disclosed, and how often shares trade, often quarterly alongside board materials. That turns liquidity from a rare tender into a repeatable process, which lets long duration capital steadily replace shorter duration holders.
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This is also the key difference versus open marketplaces like Forge and EquityZen. Those models are better for one off blocks and smaller transactions, while issuer centric systems aim to keep the company in control and attract larger institutions that want durable access to the cap table over time.
If private companies keep staying private longer, time arbitrage will become a core function of market structure, not a niche secondary tactic. The winning platforms will be the ones that let employees, early funds, and late stage institutions trade around different holding periods without pushing the company into full public market disclosure too early.