SecondMarket banks on rising tech stars, new markets
Startups like Pinterest are gaining traction on SecondMarket, but it'll take a lot to make up for losing Facebook.
SecondMarket, which runs a market for shares of private companies, took a big hit when it lost Facebook as a customer, even letting go of10 percent of its staff.
So who will replace Facebook, which since SecondMarket got into this business has been its most actively traded stock? That's a tall order, and it's unlikely that any one company will make up for all the trading that went on with Facebook.
Moreover, it's hard to assess what's going on with SecondMarket since the company doesn't disclose much. It won't say, for instance, which companies' shares are most traded and at what prices. Instead, SecondMarket breaks down categories of investments and points out such things as which companies are most tracked by its customers.
The current rising stars based on its just-released report for the first quarter: the supercharged Pinterest, the eyeglass e-commerce company Warby Parker, and Stripe, the payment company.
Here's the full list:
To combat the Facebook effect, SecondMarket has been moving away from tech companies. In February, for instance, it said it was working to sign up small private banks to help make a market in those shares. Today's report includes the following list of "most watched" community banks.
You can see SecondMarket's entire private company report for the first quarter by clicking here.