*as of 5/1; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, 30YM

The popularity of secondary markets keeps growing, with a number of platforms offering individual investors access to shares of private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and more. One startup is fighting back against unauthorized sales. Figure.AI recently sent cease-and-desist letters to multiple brokers demanding they stop marketing and selling their shares. The company ranks as the 7th most valuable startup on Yahoo’s private market listings, and has seen its value rise 13x in the last year.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Private companies generally do not want their shares sold on the secondary market, especially if it is below the current valuation or the target valuation of a future funding round. They are likely fighting a losing battle, though, as the lines between public and private markets become increasingly blurred. Much of the trade happens in downstream Special Purpose Vehicled (SPVs) that are challenging to track and trace, and often too small for startups to be concerned with. There are strong reasons Yahoo partnered with two secondary market platforms to create their private market listings. With companies staying private for much longer, existing shareholders are seeking liquidity, and these secondary markets are often the only place to find it.

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Earlier this week, Slava Rubin of Vincent, Josh Kampel of Worth Media, and Jan-Erik Asplund, co-founder of Sacra, discussed how investors can approach the emerging AI ecosystem and its most promising companies, and how investors can get exposure to the hottest sector in pre-IPO investing

Brought to you by Healey Pre-IPO: Concierge access to private tech stocks. Founded by specialist Pre-IPO broker Christine Healey.

📊 Inflation stayed steady: The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, was unchanged in March, in line with expectations. The core measure, which excludes food and energy, was also flat, compared to the expected 0.1% gain.

🏡 Pending home sales rise: Nationally, pending home sales increased 6.1% in March as mortgage rates dipped and buyers tried to get ahead of the uncertainty that April’s tariffs would bring. Pending transactions are still down 0.6% year-over-year, however, and there is an expectation that sales activity slowed in April.

🤖 Glean funding round: The AI startup is close to a new round that would value it at $7 billion, more than a 50% boost over its last valuation from last September and more than three times its February 2024 valuation.

🪙 E*Trade to add crypto trading: The Morgan Stanley-owned trading platform is aiming to launch a crypto trading platform in 2026, which would be another significant step towards easier access to the asset class for the public.

🏢 Industrial vacancy up: The national vacancy rate for industrial properties hit 7.1% in Q1, the highest since 2015, as the recent development boom has caused a glut of supply that is only slowly being filled.

🚀 Carbon tech funding: Despite an administration that may be unfriendly to the sector, funding for carbon & emissions tech was only slightly down in Q1, with $3.5 billion in total across 225 deals.

💵 Private credit tokenization: Roughly $12.9 billion of private credit assets have been tokenized to date, significantly more than any other asset class, which makes it more accessible and more liquid than traditional private credit investments.

🎨 Provenance issues: The Austrian record $37.5 million sale of Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser” has been cancelled due to an issue with one of the heirs of the original owners. The painting had been lost for 100 years and ownership had become muddled, particularly because of Nazi looting of Austrian art.

Monday: 🏡 Housing markets, 💵 Universities and PE
Tuesday: ⚽ Wrexham promotions, 🤖 xAI fundraise
Wednesday: 🏡 Housing prices, 🎨 Art auctions by category
Thursday: 🏢 CRE market update, 💰 Gold prices

Have a great weekend!