EquityZen and Equidate help shareholders (employees, ex-employees, etc.) in private companies get liquidity for shares they already own.

The employee liquidity landscape is evolving. Observations about other players in the space are my own. Are these services basically like loan sharks?įull disclosure: I’m an intern for EquityZen, so I’m familiar with this space but can speak with the most accuracy about EquityZen.If you took out a loan with these companies, but then your employer decides to stay private forever, what happens to your loan?.you were about to get fired or had to quit and lose ALL your shares, would these companies suddenly change the terms?) If you were forced to use these services (i.e.so in that case, is there evenĪny use at all for these services? like do people actually even use Through the employer's approval, and my understanding is that mostĮmployers don't allow these services.

Somehow try to collect that money even though in the contract it Value drops to 0, but you've borrowed like $4 million, can they So my questions are (hopefully someone reading this has had experience and can speak to that): However, even still, the employer would still have to approve of the services for the employee to actually go on EquityZen to sell.

I've heard that the numbers can come out to basically taking off 33% of your total stock share after a few years. Maybe SecondMarket and SharesPost fall into this category as well.īut for all of these companies like EquityZen, they claim that they can front you the money to buy your stock but you would owe them some % every year in loan interest. There are a list of companies claiming to provide liquidation for employees who have ISOs in private startups but don't have the means to exercise them (because of the ridiculous amount of phantom tax you would pay due to your AMT the next year):

Equityzen stock