The New Wild West: Everyone Is Fighting for Access to Private Company Stock

Demand for shares in hot startups like Anduril and Databricks is exploding, and founders hate it. How companies can protect themselves and their employees, and how investors can avoid getting scammed.

BY BRIAN CONTRERAS, STAFF WRITER @_B_CONTRERAS_

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Adobe Stock

It happens weekly, says Matt Grimm: His defense tech giant, Anduril, discovers someone trying to resell the company’s shares to third-party buyers.

On the one hand, Grimm—Anduril’s co-founder and COO—is sympathetic. “You can’t go down to the BMW dealership and pay with Anduril shares,” he quips. To cover short-term costs, whether it’s a new car, a house, or something else, employees need to liquidate some of their holdings. Outside investors, meanwhile, are hungry for access to the privately held government contractor: Anduril has the fifth-highest valuation on the private market, according to Yahoo Finance, about $117 billion, or almost double its last reported one of $61 billion, so there’s certainly plenty of demand.

Yet for a variety of reasons, Anduril and other sought-after private........

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