Vested fills employee liquidity gap

The core point is that employee liquidity is becoming a layer in the private market stack, not a winner take all market. Company first platforms control cap tables, approvals, and formal tender programs, but that same closeness to issuers makes them slower to help employees with small, urgent, messy cases like a 90 day post termination option exercise. Vested fits in that gap by operating at arm's length and handling transactions companies are not set up to run themselves.

• Vested started with ex employees who need relatively small amounts of money fast, often after leaving early or mid stage startups. That workflow is different from a company run liquidity program, because the employee may discover the need on day 68 of a 90 day exercise window and cannot wait through a long internal approval process.
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• The market was already splitting into roles. Forge and EquityZen were built to move smaller employee and investor blocks through marketplace style transactions, while Carta and Nasdaq Private Market were built around issuer controlled tender offers and liquidity programs. That structure naturally leaves room for specialist partners focused on employee financing and education.
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• Vested also described direct complementarity with other option funding firms. It focused on earlier stage companies and smaller checks, while firms like Secfi and Quid tended to do heavier diligence, bigger deals, and later stage names. In practice, that means referrals can flow across the ecosystem instead of every player trying to own the whole market.
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The next phase is a more modular private market, where issuer platforms handle company sanctioned liquidity, while specialist firms handle edge cases, smaller employees, and financing tied to option exercise. As private companies stay private longer, that partner network should deepen, because the number of employees needing partial liquidity grows faster than most companies' ability to serve them directly.