Onetime L.A. Company to Power Nasdaq Private Market

0

SharesPost, a company incubated out of Los Angeles before the slew of current incubators and accelerators opened in town, is powering the technology behind the Nasdaq’s new private shares exchange.

The company announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Nasdaq OMX to create the Nasdaq Private Market, a platform for buying and selling shares of private companies.

As part of the partnership, SharesPost Chief Executive Greg Brogger, a former Idealab vice president, will step down from his post with the company to become president of the new market.

SharesPost will stop operating its own private market and transition to becoming a broker for transactions made through the Nasdaq.

“The secondary markets have evolved a significant amount over the last two to three years,” Brogger said. “We think of Nasdaq entering the market as a real watershed event. It will take the market and what we are able to do for private growth companies to a whole new level.”

SharesPost was first developed out of Brighthouse, a Santa Monica incubator – now primarily investment vehicle – started by Brogger and TrueCar Chief Executive Scott Painter. Brighthouse developed the original SharesPost site and was also an early investor.

The company spun out of Brighthouse and relocated to San Bruno to be closer to its clients, including Facebook before it went public.

Brogger said SharesPost began working with Nasdaq on the Private Market last fall. The exchange was looking for a way to better serve private companies.

“There was a realization both at Nasdaq and elsewhere that private companies are staying private longer,” he said. “They were hearing from their clients that during that extended period of time being private, there were a number of problems they wanted help with, including providing liquidity to investors.”

No posts to display