Forwards Unlock Former Employee Liquidity
Dave Thornton, co-founder of Vested, on unlocking startup employee equity
This reveals that the real bottleneck in private equity liquidity is usually company ops burden, not outright company opposition. Vested is mostly helping former employees who are about to lose their option rights, in very small deal sizes, so companies often prefer to stay at arm's length rather than reopen ROFR review, cap table work, and any 409A valuation questions. That makes forwards a practical release valve for a narrow but painful employee problem.
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The company side problem is concrete. A normal secondary can trigger legal review, transfer approval, ROFR timing, and concern that a new trade price could force fresh thinking on 409A. In older market structures, these steps could stretch a trade to 3 to 6 months, which is unusable for someone in a 90 day post termination exercise window.
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This is why employee focused platforms evolved differently from issuer run tender platforms. Vested uses forwards to move fast for small, urgent transactions, while Carta and Nasdaq Private Market are built for company controlled liquidity programs where the issuer wants to pick timing, buyers, and size. Same market, different operating mode.
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The broader market has kept moving toward structures that minimize company friction. Newer platforms report that many direct matches still fail because of ROFRs and transfer restrictions, which is why SPVs and principal inventory models keep gaining share. The common thread is reducing how often the issuer has to process one off transfers.
Over time, the center of gravity should move from workaround driven trades toward recurring company sanctioned liquidity. As more private companies stay private longer, they will need formal ways to let employees and former employees get cash without clogging legal and finance teams. The winners will be the platforms that combine speed for sellers with enough control and clean process for issuers.