History
SecondMarket was founded in 2004 by Barry Silbert originally to address the growing need for liquidity for restricted securities in public companies. Beginning in early 2008, SecondMarket expanded into a number of other asset classes - first auctionârate securities, then bankruptcy claims, limited partnership interests, structured products (MBS, CDO, ABS), whole loans, private company stock, and lastly, government IOUs.
In 2007, the company raised an undisclosed amount of Series A financing from venture capital firm Pequot Ventures. In February 2010, the company raised US$15 million in Series B funding to aid its expansion into Asia. In November 2011, the company announced that they had closed a US$15 million Series C round, led by The Social+Capital Partnership. The last round of investment valued SecondMarket at US$200 million, up from a valuation of about US$150 million set in the previous round in February 2010.
On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011.
The firm's private-company transactions, which totaled $100 million in 2009, quadrupled by 2010 to $400 million. Based on first-quarter results, SecondMarket could broker $1 billion in private-company shares in 2011, taking fees from 3 to 5 percent on each trade (split evenly between buyer and seller). In March 2011, it had 53,000 registered participants, up from 35,000 in 2010, 6,500 in 2009 and 2,500 in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Second Market, Inc.
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