For 13 years, EquityZen has turned startup stock - awkward, restricted and stubbornly illiquid - into something more people can transact. Its new owner, Morgan Stanley, is betting that the private market needs plumbing as much as it needs picks.
Graham McConnell is the CEO and co-founder of Nth Round, a Philadelphia fintech that helps private companies, family enterprises and funds manage equity, run investor portals, distribute reports and create shareholder liquidity. A Dartmouth cognitive science graduate who oversaw software at the $25B quant firm AJO Partners before launching the company with his father in 2018, he is a self-described saver and Bogle-style passive investor on a mission to simplify and democratize private investing.
Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) is an independent, New York-based financial technology and broker-dealer company that runs a marketplace for trading shares of private, pre-IPO companies. Through its SecondMarket platform, NPM helps startups, employees, shareholders, and institutional investors find liquidity before an exit - via tender offers, auctions, block trades, and custom company marketplaces - while bringing price discovery, data, and settlement infrastructure to a notoriously opaque corner of finance.