The Private Shares Fund

The fund acquires shares directly from existing stockholders — employees, early investors, venture funds, and corporate sellers — rather than from the issuing companies in primary rounds. Sourcing relies on an in-house team that works with venture-firm back offices, equity-administration platforms, and corporate development desks where employee equity is tracked and held. The fund's public filings confirm that transactions are negotiated bilaterally, often at a discount to the company's most recent primary valuation.

As an interval fund registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the fund offers quarterly repurchase windows for up to 5% of outstanding shares at net asset value. This structure allows the fund to hold highly illiquid private-company securities while providing partial periodic liquidity for investors. The quarterly valuation process is overseen by an independent board, with fair-value marks reviewed and published in the fund's regulatory filings.

The portfolio historically concentrates on late-stage, venture-backed private companies valued above $1 billion, typically post-Series D. Publicly disclosed and widely reported holdings have included SpaceX, Epic Games, Discord, Impossible Foods, and Kraken. Sector exposure skews toward enterprise software, fintech infrastructure, hardtech, and space, with the fund typically holding 30 to 50 positions and limiting individual names below a stated percentage of net assets.

No. The fund purchases shares exclusively on the secondary market and does not serve as a lead investor, board member, or governance participant. Its economic rights are those of the share class it acquires, without any special voting, information, or control provisions that would typically accompany a primary venture investment.

Unlike a closed-end venture fund with a fixed 10-to-12-year life, this interval fund operates as a continuous offering with no termination date. It raises capital on an ongoing basis, does not call capital in a series of installment commitments, and provides quarterly tender-offer liquidity rather than requiring investors to wait for IPOs or acquisitions. This permanent-capital structure also means the fund can hold shares through market cycles without forced exit deadlines.

The fund is structured for retail and mass-affluent investors who meet accredited-investor thresholds but lack access to venture-fund limited partnerships. It is distributed through major brokerage and wealth-management platforms, including Schwab, Fidelity, and UBS, according to its public offering documents. Institutional allocators can also access the fund, though its primary design is to democratize late-stage private-company exposure for individual investors.

The expense ratio is meaningfully higher than that of a registered ETF or mutual fund, reflecting the legal, custody, and fair-value-valuation costs required to hold unregistered securities inside a 1940 Act fund. Additionally, the 5% quarterly repurchase cap means investors may not be able to redeem their full position in a single quarter during periods of high redemptions, creating potential liquidity mismatches despite the regulated tender mechanism.