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in your app Privacy Settings. Your preferences here are unrelated to Apple’s App
Tracking Transparency Framework.
Vendors 344
Vendors using consent 317
Vendors using legitimate interest 81
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Precise geolocation and information about device characteristics can be used.
Personalised advertising, advertising measurement, audience research and
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Advertising can be personalised based on your profile. Your activity on this
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 * Use profiles to select personalised advertising
 * Measure advertising performance
 * Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from
   different sources
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Store and/or access information on a device
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers,
randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other
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Below, you will find a list of the purposes and special features for which your
data is being processed. You may exercise your rights for specific purposes,
based on consent or legitimate interest, using the toggles below.
ConsentLegitimate interest
Purposes
Store and/or access information on a deviceOff

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers,
randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other
information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported
technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each
time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes
presented here.

Most purposes explained in this notice rely on the storage or accessing of
information from your device when you use an app or visit a website. For
example, a vendor or publisher might need to store a cookie on your device
during your first visit on a website, to be able to recognise your device during
your next visits (by accessing this cookie each time).

Vendors177 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
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1-10 / 177




Use limited data to select advertisingOff

Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such
as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type
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the number of times an ad is presented to you).

A car manufacturer wants to promote its electric vehicles to environmentally
conscious users living in the city after office hours. The advertising is
presented on a page with related content (such as an article on climate change
actions) after 6:30 p.m. to users whose non-precise location suggests that they
are in an urban zone.

A large producer of watercolour paints wants to carry out an online advertising
campaign for its latest watercolour range, diversifying its audience to reach as
many amateur and professional artists as possible and avoiding showing the ad
next to mismatched content (for instance, articles about how to paint your
house). The number of times that the ad has been presented to you is detected
and limited, to avoid presenting it too often.

Vendors43 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * AcuityAds
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * Adform
 * Advanced store
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 * Appier
 * AudienceProject
 * Bannernow

1-10 / 43




Create profiles for personalised advertisingOff

Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit,
content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you
(for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other
websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a
profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects).
Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more
relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

If you read several articles about the best bike accessories to buy, this
information could be used to create a profile about your interest in bike
accessories. Such a profile may be used or improved later on, on the same or a
different website or app to present you with advertising for a particular bike
accessory brand. If you also look at a configurator for a vehicle on a luxury
car manufacturer website, this information could be combined with your interest
in bikes to refine your profile and make an assumption that you are interested
in luxury cycling gear.

An apparel company wishes to promote its new line of high-end baby clothes. It
gets in touch with an agency that has a network of clients with high income
customers (such as high-end supermarkets) and asks the agency to create profiles
of young parents or couples who can be assumed to be wealthy and to have a new
child, so that these can later be used to present advertising within partner
apps based on those profiles.

Vendors129 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
 * Aarki
 * AcuityAds
 * AdElement Media Solutions
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * AdSpirit AdServer
 * AdTheorent
 * AdTiming

1-10 / 129




Use profiles to select personalised advertisingOff

Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising
profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or
apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and
personal aspects.

An online retailer wants to advertise a limited sale on running shoes. It wants
to target advertising to users who previously looked at running shoes on its
mobile app. Tracking technologies might be used to recognise that you have
previously used the mobile app to consult running shoes, in order to present you
with the corresponding advertisement on the app.

A profile created for personalised advertising in relation to a person having
searched for bike accessories on a website can be used to present the relevant
advertisement for bike accessories on a mobile app of another organisation.

Vendors127 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
 * ADventori
 * Aarki
 * AcuityAds
 * AdElement Media Solutions
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * AdSpirit AdServer
 * AdTheorent

1-10 / 127




Measure advertising performanceOff

Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact
with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other
users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance,
whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a
product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the
relevance of advertising campaigns.

You have clicked on an advertisement about a “black Friday” discount by an
online shop on the website of a publisher and purchased a product. Your click
will be linked to this purchase. Your interaction and that of other users will
be measured to know how many clicks on the ad led to a purchase.

You are one of very few to have clicked on an advertisement about an
“international appreciation day” discount by an online gift shop within the app
of a publisher. The publisher wants to have reports to understand how often a
specific ad placement within the app, and notably the “international
appreciation day” ad, has been viewed or clicked by you and other users, in
order to help the publisher and its partners (such as agencies) optimise ad
placements.

Vendors76 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * Aarki
 * AcuityAds
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * Adelaide
 * Adform
 * Adikteev
 * Adloox
 * Adnami

1-10 / 76




Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different
sourcesOff

Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user
profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your
interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising)
content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which
target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

The owner of an online bookstore wants commercial reporting showing the
proportion of visitors who consulted and left its site without buying, or
consulted and bought the last celebrity autobiography of the month, as well as
the average age and the male/female distribution of each category. Data relating
to your navigation on its site and to your personal characteristics is then used
and combined with other such data to produce these statistics.

An advertiser wants to better understand the type of audience interacting with
its adverts. It calls upon a research institute to compare the characteristics
of users who interacted with the ad with typical attributes of users of similar
platforms, across different devices. This comparison reveals to the advertiser
that its ad audience is mainly accessing the adverts through mobile devices and
is likely in the 45-60 age range.

Vendors28 vendor(s)

 * AdGear
 * Amazon Ad Server
 * Amobee (Nexxen)
 * Appier
 * AudienceProject
 * Bombora
 * Clinch
 * Crimtan
 * Emerse
 * Google Ads

1-10 / 28




Develop and improve servicesOff

Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with
ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to
build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of
audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or
improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

A technology platform working with a social media provider notices a growth in
mobile app users, and sees based on their profiles that many of them are
connecting through mobile connections. It uses a new technology to deliver ads
that are formatted for mobile devices and that are low-bandwidth, to improve
their performance.

An advertiser is looking for a way to display ads on a new type of consumer
device. It collects information regarding the way users interact with this new
kind of device to determine whether it can build a new mechanism for displaying
advertising on this type of device.

Vendors50 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * Aarki
 * AcuityAds
 * AdGear
 * Adelaide
 * Adform
 * Admixer
 * Amazon Ad Server
 * Amobee (Nexxen)
 * Appier

1-10 / 50




Below, you will find a list of the features for which your data is being
processed. You may exercise your rights for special features using the toggles
below.
Features
Match and combine data from other data sources

Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with
other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for
instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card
in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in
this notice.

Vendors107 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
 * AdGear
 * AdTheorent
 * Adara (Rate Gain)
 * Adelaide
 * Adex (Virtual Minds)
 * Admixer
 * AdsWizz
 * Amazon Ad Server

1-10 / 107




Link different devices

In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be
considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your
household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both
your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet
connection on both devices).

Vendors108 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
 * AcuityAds
 * AdElement Media Solutions
 * AdGear
 * AdTheorent
 * Adara (Rate Gain)
 * Adex (Virtual Minds)
 * Adform
 * Adikteev

1-10 / 108




Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it
automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of
your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the
purposes exposed in this notice.

Vendors125 vendor(s)

 * 6sense
 * A.Mob
 * Aarki
 * AdElement Media Solutions
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * AdSpirit AdServer
 * AdTheorent
 * Adacado
 * Adara (Rate Gain)

1-10 / 125




Special features
Use precise geolocation dataOff

With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500
metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.

Vendors64 vendor(s)

 * A.Mob
 * AdElement Media Solutions
 * AdGear
 * AdKernel
 * AdTheorent
 * Adacado
 * Admixer
 * Adrule mobile
 * AdsWizz
 * Amnet GmbH

1-10 / 64




Actively scan device characteristics for identificationOff

With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be
requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed
fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes
explained in this notice.

Vendors23 vendor(s)

 * A.Mob
 * AdKernel
 * AdTheorent
 * Adcell (Firstlead)
 * Amnet GmbH
 * Cheq
 * Fraudlogix
 * Human
 * Hybrid
 * InMobi

1-10 / 23




Below, you will find a list of vendors processing your data and the purposes or
features of processing they declare. You may exercise your rights for each
vendor based on the legal basis they assert.
ConsentLegitimate interest
IAB TCF Vendors
6senseIAB TCFOff

6sense stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 730. This
vendor also uses other methods like "local storage" to store and access
information on your device.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device400 day(s)Create
profiles for personalised advertising400 day(s)Use profiles to select
personalised advertising400 day(s)Use limited data to select advertising400
day(s)Measure advertising performance400 day(s)Develop and improve services400
day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 400 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content400 day(s)

FeaturesMatch and combine data from other data sourcesLink different
devicesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Data categoriesIP addressesProbabilistic identifiersBrowsing and interaction
dataNon-precise location dataUsers’ profiles

A.MobIAB TCFOff

A.Mob stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 395. This
vendor also uses other methods like "local storage" to store and access
information on your device.

Privacy policy

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device395 day(s)Use
limited data to select advertising395 day(s)Create profiles for personalised
advertising395 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised advertising395
day(s)Measure advertising performance395 day(s)Understand audiences through
statistics or combinations of data from different sources395 day(s)Develop and
improve services395 day(s)

FeaturesMatch and combine data from other data sourcesLink different
devicesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Special featuresUse precise geolocation dataActively scan device characteristics
for identification

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersProbabilistic
identifiersAuthentication-derived identifiersBrowsing and interaction
dataUser-provided dataNon-precise location dataPrecise location dataUsers’
profilesPrivacy choices

ADventoriIAB TCFOff

ADventori stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 90.
These cookies may be refreshed. This vendor also uses other methods like "local
storage" to store and access information on your device.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device400 day(s)Use
limited data to select advertising90 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised
advertising90 day(s)Measure advertising performance400 day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 400 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content400 day(s)

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice identifiersProbabilistic identifiersBrowsing
and interaction dataUser-provided dataNon-precise location data

AarkiIAB TCFOff

uses methods like "local storage" to store and access information on your
device.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device365 day(s)Use
limited data to select advertising365 day(s)Create profiles for personalised
advertising3650 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised advertising3650
day(s)Measure advertising performance1500 day(s)Develop and improve services365
day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 365 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content365 day(s)

FeaturesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersUser-provided
dataNon-precise location data

AcuityAdsIAB TCFOff

AcuityAds stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 365.
These cookies may be refreshed.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device180 day(s)Create
profiles for personalised advertising180 day(s)Use profiles to select
personalised advertising180 day(s)Use limited data to select advertising180
day(s)Measure advertising performance180 day(s)Develop and improve services180
day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 180 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content180 day(s)

FeaturesLink different devices

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice
identifiersAuthentication-derived identifiersBrowsing and interaction
dataNon-precise location dataUsers’ profilesPrivacy choices

AdElement Media SolutionsIAB TCFOff

AdElement Media Solutions stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this
many days: 365. These cookies may be refreshed.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device180 day(s)Use
limited data to select advertising180 day(s)Create profiles for personalised
advertising90 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised advertising90
day(s)Measure advertising performance180 day(s)Understand audiences through
statistics or combinations of data from different sources90 day(s)Develop and
improve services180 day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 180 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content180 day(s)

FeaturesLink different devicesIdentify devices based on information transmitted
automatically

Special featuresUse precise geolocation data

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersBrowsing and
interaction dataUser-provided dataNon-precise location dataPrecise location
dataUsers’ profilesPrivacy choices

AdGearIAB TCFOff

AdGear stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 395. This
vendor also uses other methods like "local storage" to store and access
information on your device.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device395 day(s)Create
profiles for personalised advertising395 day(s)Use profiles to select
personalised advertising395 day(s)Use limited data to select advertising395
day(s)Measure advertising performance395 day(s)Understand audiences through
statistics or combinations of data from different sources395 day(s)Develop and
improve services395 day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 395 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content395 day(s)

FeaturesMatch and combine data from other data sourcesLink different
devicesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Special featuresUse precise geolocation data

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersProbabilistic
identifiersAuthentication-derived identifiersBrowsing and interaction
dataUser-provided dataNon-precise location dataUsers’ profilesPrivacy choices

AdKernelIAB TCFOff

AdKernel stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 18.
These cookies may be refreshed.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device180 day(s)Create
profiles for personalised advertising180 day(s)Use profiles to select
personalised advertising180 day(s)Understand audiences through statistics or
combinations of data from different sources180 day(s)Develop and improve
services180 day(s)Use limited data to select advertising180 day(s)Measure
advertising performance180 day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 180 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content180 day(s)

FeaturesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Special featuresUse precise geolocation dataActively scan device characteristics
for identification

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice identifiersNon-precise location dataPrecise
location dataUsers’ profiles

AdSpirit AdServerIAB TCFOff

AdSpirit AdServer stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many
days: 30. These cookies may be refreshed.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device60 day(s)Use limited
data to select advertising14 day(s)Create profiles for personalised
advertising60 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised advertising60
day(s)Measure advertising performance14 day(s)Understand audiences through
statistics or combinations of data from different sources60 day(s)

Special purposesRetentionEnsure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix
errors 60 day(s)Deliver and present advertising and content60 day(s)

FeaturesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersProbabilistic
identifiersBrowsing and interaction dataNon-precise location dataUsers’
profilesPrivacy choices

AdTheorentIAB TCFOff

AdTheorent stores cookies with a maximum duration of about this many days: 730.
These cookies may be refreshed.

Privacy policyLegitimate interest disclosure

PurposesRetentionStore and/or access information on a device365 day(s)Use
limited data to select advertising365 day(s)Create profiles for personalised
advertising365 day(s)Use profiles to select personalised advertising365
day(s)Measure advertising performance365 day(s)Understand audiences through
statistics or combinations of data from different sources365 day(s)Develop and
improve services365 day(s)

FeaturesMatch and combine data from other data sourcesLink different
devicesIdentify devices based on information transmitted automatically

Special featuresUse precise geolocation dataActively scan device characteristics
for identification

Data categoriesIP addressesDevice characteristicsDevice identifiersProbabilistic
identifiersNon-precise location dataPrecise location dataPrivacy choices

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TENSIONS RISE IN SILICON VALLEY OVER SALES OF START-UP STOCKS

The market for shares of hot start-ups like SpaceX and Stripe is projected to
reach a record $64 billion this year.

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Credit...Ryan Inzana

By Erin Griffith

Reporting from San Francisco

May 6, 2024

Sohail Prasad, an entrepreneur, launched a fund in March called the Destiny
Tech100. The fund owns shares in hot tech start-ups like the payments firm
Stripe, the rocket maker SpaceX and the artificial intelligence company OpenAI.

Few people get the chance to invest in these privately held companies since
their shares are not openly traded. Mr. Prasad’s intention with Destiny was to
let the rest of the world get a piece of them through his fund.

But soon after Destiny debuted, two tech start-ups — Stripe and Plaid, a banking
service — said the fund did not legally own their shares. A competitor
criticized Destiny as “too good to be true.” Robinhood, the stock trading app,
stopped letting investors buy into the fund, saying it had been added to its app
by mistake.

Mr. Prasad was not surprised by the uproar. It was a sign of “a true cultural
movement in which DXYZ is at the forefront,” he said, referring to Destiny by
its ticker symbol.

Tensions over the shadowy and often enigmatic market of private company stocks
have reached a boiling point, just as the buying and selling of such shares has
grown bigger than ever. At its center is an age-old debate: Should everyone have
access to the riches and risks of investing in Silicon Valley start-ups?


Image

Sohail Prasad’s Destiny Tech100 fund, which owns shares in start-ups, trades on
the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DXYZ.Credit...Sarah Blesener
for The New York Times

The market for private company stocks, also known as the secondary market, is on
track to hit a record $64 billion this year, up 40 percent from last year,
according to Sacra, a research firm focused on private investments. A decade
ago, the private company stock market was roughly $16 billion, according to
Industry Ventures, a firm focused on secondary transactions.

As the appetite for private company shares has soared, so have the headaches. If
a company is publicly traded, like Apple or Amazon, anyone can easily buy and
sell its stock. But privately owned tech start-ups like Stripe typically have a
small circle of owners, such as their founders and employees, as well as the
wealthy individuals and venture capital firms that provided financing for the
companies to grow. The companies’ stocks do not usually change hands.

Now, as these start-ups mature and don’t appear to be in a rush to go public, a
wider range of investors are becoming eager to own their stock. New online
marketplaces that match sellers of start-up stock with interested buyers have
sprung up.



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And funds like Destiny have appeared. Destiny is among the only options for
retail investors, since most other funds and marketplaces are restricted to
“accredited” investors with high incomes or net worth.

The activity has increasingly rattled some start-ups, which have long resisted
letting their shares freely change hands. The more people who own their stock,
the more unwieldy the number of shareholders, which can lead to difficulties
complying with securities laws, among other complications. While some start-ups
are allowing some trading of their stock, other trades are happening without
permission.

“We’re coming to a point where something has to give,” said Noel Moldvai, the
chief executive of Augment, a marketplace for private start-up shares.


‘HEY, I OWN SOME SPACEX’


Image

People are eager to buy shares of privately held start-ups like SpaceX, said
Jeff Parks, chief executive of Stack Capital.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New
York Times

Among the online marketplaces for buying and selling private company stocks is
Hiive, which started in 2022. It is currently offering customers shares in
Anthropic, a hot artificial intelligence start-up.



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Hiive bought $15 million of Anthropic stock and is letting investors buy chunks
as small as $25,000, said Sim Desai, the company’s chief executive. The site
oversees an average of around $20 million in deals a week.



At Augment, which opened last year, investors interested in owning shares in
Stripe can peruse four “sell orders,” or people trying to sell Stripe shares.
Augment did more than $20 million of transactions in March, Mr. Moldvai said.

Some investment funds — including Stack Capital, Fundrise, Private Shares Fund
and ARK Invest’s ARK Venture Fund — are also pitching the ability to own a piece
of private start-ups. Destiny, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange and
contains shares in 23 start-ups worth around $53 million, is one of a few
options that are publicly traded.

The activity has alarmed some start-ups. Stripe, valued at $65 billion in the
private market, has issued a strongly worded statement about offers to buy its
stock. Any offer to invest in its shares that does not come from the company is
“very likely a scam,” it said. Stripe has encouraged shareholders to report such
offers to law enforcement.

Stripe and Anthropic declined to comment for this article.

Even so, people remain eager to get shares of the start-ups, said Jeff Parks,
chief executive of Stack Capital, which offers investors access to companies
including SpaceX and Canva, a design software start-up.



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“You want to be on the golf course like, ‘Hey, I own some SpaceX,’” he said.


RISKY DEALS

Private stock sales go back more than a decade — and have always felt a bit like
the Wild West.

Before Facebook went public in 2012, its privately held shares changed hands on
marketplaces such as SharesPost and SecondMarket. The Securities and Exchange
Commission warned that such marketplaces were risky “for even savvy investors”
and fined SharesPost $80,000 for not registering as a broker-dealer.

In the aftermath, start-ups tried restricting sales of their stock. But
middlemen including Forge Global, then known as Equidate, found ways around it.
They popularized “forward contracts,” which paid start-up employees cash if they
pledged to transfer their company shares to an investor in the future.

Forward contracts caught on at start-ups like Airbnb. When Airbnb publicly
listed its stock in 2020, Forge oversaw the transfer of $475 million of shares
pledged by the vacation rental site’s employees to more than 100 investors.

“It was an administrative nightmare,” said Kelly Rodriques, Forge’s chief
executive. Forge has since built technology to handle that process and no longer
strikes forward contracts.



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Some companies that have stayed private the longest, including Stripe, which is
14 years old, and SpaceX, which is 22 years old, have begun offering regular
opportunities for employees to sell a portion of their stock at a set price.

Even though companies historically resisted the trading of their private stock,
more are coming around to the idea, Mr. Rodriques said.

“The market has never been more accepting of secondary liquidity than it is
now,” he said.


A TIME OF DESTINY?

Mr. Prasad, a co-founder of Forge, left in 2019 to create Destiny. He raised $94
million in 2021 to buy stakes in start-ups with the plan of taking the fund
public.

Mr. Prasad said his goal was to give more investors access to private start-up
shares. “We’re trying to drive a world where it becomes less binary from being
private to being public,” he said. Change, he added, “can make people
uncomfortable at first.”

To obtain private company shares for the fund, he used forward contracts to buy
$1.7 million of stock in Stripe and Plaid.

Both companies have bristled at Destiny’s claim to the shares. Such deals would
violate its rules, Plaid said in a statement last month, and it “does not
recognize shares acquired in this manner.”


Image

The San Francisco headquarters of Stripe, which has said it forbids forward
contracts for its stock.Credit...David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Stripe also published a notice on its website. “We have become aware of certain
investment funds that do not own any Stripe stock claiming to offer retail
investors access to Stripe,” it said, warning that “their investments may have
no value at all.” Stripe forbids forward contracts and has said such deals are
void.

Mr. Prasad said he was confident that Destiny’s shares were legal.

Last month, Destiny’s share price soared, with the fund hitting a market
capitalization of over $1 billion. A subsidiary of Ark Invest, the firm led by
the well-known investor Cathie Wood, posted on social media that Destiny’s
strategy was flawed because its market capitalization was so much higher than
the value of its start-up investments. Ark offers a competing fund, the Ark
Venture Fund, which is structured differently.

Ark declined to comment beyond a blog post in which it argued that its fund
provided better access to private companies than funds like Destiny’s.



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In response, Mr. Prasad posted an image of the “distracted boyfriend” meme,
implying Ark was jealous of his fund, and the “waiting” meme from the Netflix
show “Narcos,” implying Ark investors would take many years to liquidate their
investments.

On April 16, Robinhood removed the ability to buy Destiny’s stock from its app.
A Robinhood spokesman said that it did not allow closed-end funds, the type of
investment fund used by Destiny, and that Destiny’s fund had been mistakenly
labeled by one of its vendors as a stock.

Mr. Prasad revealed plans to raise more money to “accelerate our momentum.” But
Destiny’s share price crashed. On Friday, it was trading at a market
capitalization of $141 million.



A correction was made on 
May 6, 2024
: 

An earlier version of this article misstated the amount Hiive bought in
Anthropic stock. It was $15 million, not $50 million.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an
error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Erin Griffith covers tech companies, start-ups and the culture of Silicon Valley
from San Francisco. More about Erin Griffith

A version of this article appears in print on May 7, 2024, Section B, Page 1 of
the New York edition with the headline: Tensions Rise in Silicon Valley. Order
Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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