Pre-IPO stock marketplace Hiive raises CAD $5.7M

Vancouver-based Hiive, the first company to provide direct trading between buyers and sellers of pre-IPO shares, has announced its first institutional capital raise to the tune of CAD $5.7 million (USD $4.2 million) from global investors. Participants in the round included Uncorrelated Ventures led by Forbes Midas List investor Salil Deshpande, along with Splash Capital, Harmony Venture Partners, Hack VC, Agmen Capital, and more.

What is Hiive? Launched in May 2022, Hiive is the first platform to fully automate a private shares marketplace in which buyers and sellers can meet and trade directly with each other — like a stock market, but for companies that aren’t publicly traded. The platform offers real-time and continuous trading data for its listed companies.

“There are many players hawking private market data,” said Sim Desai, founder and CEO, in a press release. “But the quality is usually low as it is based on surveys of brokers and investors, some of whom may have no intention to buy at all, rather than on bona fide customer orders or transactions. By contrast, if you see a price on Hiive, you know that it comes from a real bid, ask, or trade placed directly by a confirmed buyer or seller on the platform.”

Why should you keep an eye on this company? Hiive’s growth is particularly significant. Over the past 12 months, the marketplace has increased both its rate and volume of transaction completion around six times, leading to its current valuation of approximately CAD $105 million (USD $77 million). Hiive has also rapidly expanded its employee count, rocketing from six in January 2022 to 45 today, and the organization currently has more than 10 roles advertised on its website.

Hiive is a regulated securities brokerage, FINRA member, and operates an alternative trading system regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Why does the raise matter? Economic headwinds post-pandemic have made this period the most challenging for the VC secondary market since the 2008 crash — but despite that climate, Hiive has managed to accelerate its growth and secure funding. The company also anticipates that as the tech IPO drought draws to a close, market momentum will pick up, and Hiive will be on an even steeper upward trajectory.

How does Hiive help businesses as well as traders? Hiive also offers a way for private company management teams to provide liquidity to their shareholders in a controlled manner, the company says, without the legal costs and effort of formal liquidity processes.

“Traditional tender offers run by the likes of NPM and Carta are costly, cumbersome, and even risky since they might not succeed at the fixed price,” Desai noted. “It puts a lot of eggs into one basket for the issuer and usually does not fully meet the ongoing liquidity needs of shareholders. We aim to offer companies a flexible alternative to this approach while keeping them in control of key parameters.”