SecondMarket Releases Q3 Private Company Stock Trading Report

Nearly $75 million in private company trades, a year-over-year increase of over 1,500%

NEW YORK--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--SecondMarket, the leading marketplace for alternative investments, released its Q3 Private Company Report today. The Report features information related to completed private company stock transactions, including the types of buyers and sellers, as well as the companies receiving the most buyside interest from SecondMarket participants. SecondMarket completed approximately $75 million in transactions across nearly a dozen private companies in the quarter, a year-over-year increase of over 1,500%.

“The market for private company stock continues to explode across a variety of sectors, with new private companies being added every quarter”

“The market for private company stock continues to explode across a variety of sectors, with new private companies being added every quarter,” said SecondMarket Founder and CEO Barry Silbert. “We’ve also seen the types of investors continue to diversify, with venture capital funds and asset managers becoming more active market participants. It takes over 10 years for a company to go public today, and that timeline doesn’t work for management, employees and other shareholders. The success of our private company market reveals a recognition that the market dynamics have permanently changed.”

SecondMarket tracks its participants’ interest in purchasing shares in a particular private company. These Indications of Interest (IOIs) allow SecondMarket participants to express buyside demand in nearly 500 private companies. In the third quarter:

• The companies that experienced the greatest percentage of increase in buyside interest were Groupon, Zipcar, Trulia, Pandora and Bloom Energy.
• Buyer interest in Groupon increased the most at 63%, marking the second consecutive quarter that Groupon had the largest surge in buyside interest.
• Facebook (34%) retained its position as the recipient of the most IOIs, followed by Twitter (6%) and LinkedIn (6%).
• Three exciting companies also emerged this quarter to receive a significant number of IOIs from SecondMarket participants for the first time: Angie’s List, Brightcove and Mahalo.

Transactions were completed in high-profile companies such as Facebook and Zynga, but also in private companies such as GlobalLogic, Bridgelux, Gamefly and Acronis. Nearly three dozen private companies are now traded over SecondMarket. In 2010, SecondMarket has completed over $250 million in private company stock transactions, as well as billions of dollars in transactions across all other SecondMarket asset classes.

To view the entire Q3 Private Company Report, click here.

About SecondMarket

Founded in 2004, New York-based SecondMarket is the largest secondary market for alternative assets, including private company stock, limited partnership interests, auctionrate securities, bankruptcy claims, collateralized debt obligations, residential and commercial mortgagebacked securities, assetbacked securities, warrants/restricted stock and whole loans. SecondMarket has over 20,000 participants including global financial institutions, regional and community banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, mutual funds, corporations and other institutional and accredited investors. SecondMarket’s shareholders include FirstMark Capital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB), the Li Ka-Shing Foundation and Dunearn, a subsidiary of (Singapore) Temasek Holdings. SecondMarket is a registered broker-dealer (Member FINRA, MSRB and SIPC). SecondMarket was recently selected as a 2011 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. For further information, please visit www.SecondMarket.com.

Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/secondmarket