Inside The Private-Market Divide: EquityZen’s Phil Haslett On AI, SaaS And Secondaries
The market for private-company shares has become a much bigger part of the startup ecosystem. In this Crunchbase News Q&A, EquityZen co-founder Phil Haslett discusses why startups are offering employees and investors liquidity earlier, and why secondary prices can be more revealing than headline valuations.
The private-market for shares in venture-backed companies has grown in recent years. EquityZen, a New York-based marketplace, has been operating in this space since 2013. Morgan Stanley recently acquired EquityZen, bringing the company under the investment bank's umbrella. Phil Haslett, the co-founder and chief strategy officer of EquityZen, has observed the secondary market's evolution. Crunchbase News spoke with Haslett about several aspects of the secondaries market.
The second quarter of 2026 was one of the strongest venture-backed IPO quarters since 2021, driven largely by SpaceX's activity. However, if SpaceX is removed from the equation, the IPO market for typical late-stage startups may not be as open. Tech markets are performing well, with the stock market at an all-time high and a strong recovery.
IPO performance beyond SpaceX has been mixed, with some companies experiencing a slowdown in performance post-IPO. Within the AI sector, there are opportunities across various stages of production, including data centers, technology, orchestration of compute, and efficient spending on training and inference. Several AI companies have entered the Top 20, reflecting a shift towards AI infrastructure, space tech, and robotics as industries with generational growth opportunities.
Secondary investors underwrite these capital-intensive companies by assessing whether the overall opportunity is big enough to justify longer timelines and additional funding. These investors may discount the headline valuations from primary raises based on the delays and risks associated with building factories, obtaining regulatory approvals, and capital-intensive growth.
EquityZen notes that the average transaction occurs at a 38% discount to the last funding round, while AI transactions often trade at premiums. This bifurcation of the private market can be attributed to two vintages of companies - those that were not initially built AI-first and had to adapt, and new AI-first companies that were built from a clean slate, with cleaner stories for the market and more efficient operations.
Written by urgent.news from Crunchbase News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
