option-exercise-funding
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Equitybee
Equitybee is a financial technology marketplace that connects startup employees who can't afford to exercise their vested stock options with accredited investors willing to fund the exercise in exchange for a share of the future upside. Founded in 2017 by three childhood friends and headquartered in Palo Alto, the platform lets employees convert paper equity into real ownership - or cash - without waiting for an IPO, while giving investors a rare way to buy into pre-IPO companies they otherwise couldn't reach.
Vested
Vested is a Miami-based fintech that helps startup employees turn their stock options into real value without paying out of pocket. It funds the cost of exercising options - the strike price, estimated taxes and fees - in exchange for a slice of the shares if and when a liquidity event happens. Alongside the capital, Vested offers free tools: an equity dashboard, the 'Vestimate' valuation estimate, outcome simulators and an Equity 101 education library, so option-holders can understand, track and act on equity that would otherwise expire unused.
Dave Thornton
Dave Thornton is the co-founder, CEO, and chief investment officer of Vested, a Miami-based fintech that funds startup employees to exercise their stock options before the 90-day post-departure window erases them. A serial entrepreneur who studied computer science, economics, and law, Thornton built Vested around a simple, painful truth he saw firsthand: roughly half of all employee stock options go abandoned, leaving an estimated $600 billion of value unclaimed. His pitch is to turn venture capital into something closer to an index fund - broad, diversified exposure to hundreds of startups - while giving everyday employees the cash and the clarity to actually keep the equity they earned.