Between 1999 and 2025 the median age of a U.S. tech IPO climbed from four years to twelve. By the time SpaceX or Stripe or Anthropic prices a public offering, the bulk of the value creation has already happened — captured by the founders, employees, and a small set of venture firms that had access to the rounds the rest of the market never saw.
Why now
Three things have converged. The disclosure rules around secondary transfers loosened materially after the 2024 SEC clarifications. Tender activity exploded — SpaceX alone moved $1.2B in employee liquidity in February. And tooling for fractional ownership crossed the line from feasibility to product: ledgering, settlement, and identity stacks now run at the same latencies as public-market brokerage.
What's still hard
Liquidity is real but uneven. Pricing requires reference rather than orderbook discovery. Compliance is a moving target. None of that changes the demand side: people want to own pieces of the companies they read about, and they want to do it in dollars, not in five-figure minimums.
VeldenStake is the front door to that market.