EquityZenReviews of equityzen.com

They have reasonable deals but it only works well for companies with clear IPO plan. Few known limitations (please verify with your sales person) - 1) There is NO real ownership of stocks, basically we own percentage in Equityzen-series LLC and that LLC owns stocks. This makes difficult to sell pre-IPO stocks outside equityzen. 2) They have express deals to sell, this requires at least 2% ownership. 3) Charges are high, 5% to buy and 5% to sell. Basically to make 10% return that pre-IPO company valuation up by 20%. 4) For IPO companies - they've 6-months waiting period. We can't really trade anything in first 6-months of IPO. 5) It's very unlikely that employees sell stocks before IPO if that company is doing really good (they/insiders know more than us/outsiders). With all limitations, it's probably makes sense to take risk on companies that are very near to IPO cycle or companies in latest emerging domain with low valuation. This is just my perspective, making sure clarify these rules with the company before investing.

Leader in the space with access to more and larger deals than most individuals would find, but their distribution mechanism has glitches and can wipe out investment returns entirely.

EquityZen is great until you have a problem, then the integrity of their management becomes an issue. A few days ago they sent a distribution to an incorrect account. It was their mistake - they sent the deposit to an account that was not in my business setting. Their support staff informed me that they will wait or the recall of funds before they will resend my distribution. My contention is that the incorrect desposit is their issue, not mine. By making the return of funds a requirement for resending my funds, in effect they are withholding my funds for their mistake. First they have to realize that it is my money that they deposited to another account. they LOST my money. Recovery of that money is their issue. It is was entrusted to them to deposit to the designated account stipulated in my profile. Failure to do so, is their immediate liability. To an institution of integrity, this is not a matter of choice - it is an obligation! Right now the matter has been escalated but yet unresolved. They do not have integrity in their DNA- in their core values thus the indecision and vacillation. If they do not correct this, EquityZen will have much bigger problem. They cannot be trusted.