SecondMarket
Helping hot private companies stay private -- maybe forever
July 20, 2011: 7:08 PM ETTwitter's CEO dismissed the secondary markets as a "distraction," but SecondMarket is winning converts among some entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
By Stacy Cowley, CNNMoney tech editor
FORTUNE -- Twitter CEO Dick Costolo took a few potshots yesterday at the secondary markets -- the private exchanges where early employees and investors can sell off the shares they hold in not-yet-public companies to willing buyers. Calling them a "distraction," Costolo said Twitter has retroactively put in place policies to restrict trading in its much-buzzed-about stock.
"You worry about people who might be buying through those secondary markets … what they've been told by the person who might be trying to sell them the stock, and who's going to get in trouble at the end of the day if it doesn't all work out with them," he said at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech gathering.
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Timeline: Where Facebook got its funding
As Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, and others clamor for a larger piece of Facebook and its valuation spirals upwards, here's a look back through all the VC rounds and players that fueled Facebook to be what it is today.
When Goldman Sachs (GS) and Digital Sky Technologies invested $500 million in Facebook, propelling its valuation to a new high of $50 billion, they renewed chatter about whether the social network was MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jan 11, 2011 10:46 AM ET -
The SEC's challenge in the secondary market
SecondMarket, Sharespost, NYPPEX all let wealthy investors treat private companies, like Facebook, as publicly traded ones. Are they flouting securities laws, or reinventing them for the 21st century?
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
Sorry, small investors. If you want to buy shares in Facebook, Groupon or Twitter, you're going to have to wait until their IPOs.
That much is certain now that the Securities and Exchange Commission has started looking into the trading of MORE
Jan 4, 2011 1:34 PM ET
