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"Hiive" is a trading platform for pre-IPO shares of private companies. The fintech platform is the first-ever centralized meeting place for buyers and sellers of shares in startups. Most of the trading on the marketplace consists of shares of companies that have been valued at $1 billion or more in a venture capital fundraise (commonly referred to as unicorns). Hiive platform users can connect, negotiate, and execute secondary market transactions directly with their counter-party. Users of Hiive include employees of highly valued private companies, venture capital funds, hedge funds, ultra-high net worth individuals, and registered investment advisors (RIAs).

Hiive is a member of the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). The company's alternative trading system (ATS) is regulated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Hiive has facilitated secondary transactions involving some of the most prominent pre-IPO, VC-backed companies such as Discord, Flexport, and Stripe.

History
Hiive was founded in 2021 by Sim Desai, who assembled a team of co-founders Sarah Huggins, Stuart Eccles, and Prab Rattan to address the unique and complex challenges associated with digitizing a highly regulated securities business. Desai’s vision was to establish a transparent, automated, and centralized marketplace for the private equity secondary market. In 2022, the company relocated from Toronto to Vancouver, releasing its beta product in May and officially launching the trading platform to the public in July. .

Desai previously led the venture capital business at Setter Capital.

Direct Trading
Hiive is an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of private company shares. Unlike other platforms or traditional brokers, Hiive enables users to connect, negotiate, and execute secondary market transactions with their counter-party in an automated manner without intermediation by a live broker.

Market data and transparency
Hiive provides users with dynamic marketplace data within the trading interface. The platform features a live order book containing all active orders and listings, and a price chart displaying information on historic bid and ask prices and transactions executed. The company also publishes a monthly private market report providing an overview of the secondary market for pre-IPO shares based on user-generated data aggregated from its trading platform.

This data has been relied on to evaluate the momentum of the private markets, and gauge the market value of private companies where a recent 409a valuation is not available.

Users
Hiive’s sellers mostly consist of current and former employees of highly valued private startups. The employees are typically seeking to cash out some of the shares they obtained via stock option plans. However, investors such as venture capital funds and hedge funds also use Hiive to sell when they are looking to realize gains on their investments or manage their portfolios.

Buyers on Hiive include venture capital funds, hedge funds, so-called secondary funds, angel investors, ultra-high net worth individuals, and registered investment advisors.