Nasdaq Private Market

Deal flow originates directly from the 1,000+ private companies it serves for tender offers, buybacks, and capital raises. Because NPM administers company-led liquidity programs, it sits at the source of corporate equity sales rather than relying solely on shareholder-initiated secondary selling. This embedded relationship model gives the platform continuous, structured access to new issuance and secondary transaction volume.

Nasdaq Private Market is neither. It is a FINRA/SIPC member broker-dealer and technology platform that provides core market infrastructure — liquidity programs, a secondary trading venue, data products, and a patented settlement engine — for private companies and accredited investors. The firm does not operate a pooled investment fund, though it facilitates transactions in private-company stock and select single-asset funds.

NPM does not invest as a principal; it facilitates liquidity for shareholders of private companies that are generally late-stage, venture-backed, pre-IPO businesses. The companies using its platform represent a range of stages, but the common characteristic is meaningful secondary-market demand from institutional and accredited investors. Sectors served include enterprise software, fintech, digital health, and climate technology.

Tom Callahan is the Chief Executive Officer and sets firm-wide strategy. Mike Buono, as Managing Director and Co-Head of Private Shares Trading, leads the trading desk that matches buy and sell orders on the secondary marketplace. Unlike a fund with a CIO, NPM's 'investment decisions' are operational and marketplace-driven — structuring liquidity programs for companies and executing order flow, not allocating a balance sheet.

Nasdaq Private Market was originally founded as a unit of Nasdaq, Inc. in 2013. It was spun out as an independent company in 2021 with backing from a bank consortium and a continued strategic investment from Nasdaq, Inc. Nasdaq, Inc. also led NPM's $62.4 million Series B round in 2024. The two companies maintain a close commercial and strategic relationship, but NPM operates as a separate, privately held entity.

NPM does not co-invest from its own balance sheet. Its Capital Solutions pillar connects private companies to institutional investors for primary and secondary fundraising, which sometimes includes co-managing or sole-managing transactions that could be described as club-style syndications. However, NPM acts as an agent and capital markets intermediary, not as a co-investing principal.

NPM operates a proprietary pricing and data product called NPM Data and Intelligence, which includes Tape D — a daily pricing and valuation signal product sourced from actual primary and secondary transactions. The firm views its high-information data layer as a core piece of market infrastructure, supporting price discovery for trading, regulatory compliance, and ASC 820/IFRS 13 fair-value reporting for institutional participants.