Vested's Shift To Market Making
Dave Thornton, co-founder of Vested, on unlocking startup employee equity
This points to Vested trying to become market infrastructure, not just an asset manager. Today it wraps employee option funding inside funds, earns management fees and carry, and uses SPVs or trusts to package many small employee deals. A future market making role would mean matching recurring buyer and seller flow, setting prices, and earning transaction economics from liquidity itself rather than mainly from fund returns.
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The current structure is a classic manager on top of vehicles. The Inc. sits above multiple funds, each with its own GP owned by the Inc. That setup is efficient for warehousing risk while Vested is still underwriting many small option exercise financings one by one.
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Vested sits in a distinct lane from issuer led platforms like CartaX and Nasdaq Private Market. It starts with employees, especially smaller early and mid-stage deals that larger, diligence heavy players often skip. That makes a fund model useful early, because Vested often has to be the balance sheet, not just the venue.
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Moving toward market making is the natural next step once trust, pricing data, and repeat flow exist. In private markets, exchanges usually come after brokers, data, and transfer rails. The upside is a more scalable fee model, where each transaction can generate spread or execution revenue without tying up as much fund capital.
The path from fund manager to market maker usually follows market maturity. As private company liquidity becomes more standardized, with better price visibility, faster approvals, and more repeat participation from employees, buyers, and issuers, the highest value role shifts from owning inventory to operating the rails. That would push Vested from financing isolated exercises toward becoming a repeat liquidity venue for startup equity.