AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, the founders of Forge, a leading global private securities marketplace, announce the launch of their new company, D/XYZ (pronounced Destiny). In 2014, at twenty years old, Sohail Prasad and Samvit Ramadurgam founded Forge to create an accessible, liquid, and transparent private market. Forge now transacts billions of dollars in pre-IPO stock annually and is projected to have over $120M of revenue in 2021. Forge recently announced that it will be going public in a $2B merger with special-purpose acquisition company Motive Capital Corp (NYSE:MOTV), becoming the first dedicated trading platform for private shares to become a public company (non-paywall link).
Federal securities laws generally limit investment in private unicorns – a growing $2.5T asset class – to accredited investors: those who meet a minimum threshold of $200,000 in annual income or $1,000,000 in net worth. Wealth inequality continues to deepen as everyday investors can only access innovative, high-growth, venture-backed businesses when a company goes public. The early growth once available to everyday investors in transformative tech companies like Amazon and Google, which went public at earlier stages in their growth, is today beyond reach. “When it comes to the private markets, the opportunity to invest is only legally available for institutional and accredited investors — the wealthiest 1% of the global population,” said Sohail Prasad, Founder and CEO of D/XYZ. “This is the opposite of equal opportunity and we want to change that.”
D/XYZ is purpose-built to continue expanding upon their vision of opening access to the private market for all. D/XYZ will create a family of exchange-traded products that once publicly listed, will enable anyone with a brokerage account — regardless of net worth — to invest in portfolios of private technology companies.
“We believe in a kinder form of capitalism – in a future where people have a vested interest in transformative companies they know and love,” said Prasad. “While building Forge, we saw investment opportunities in generation-defining tech companies increasingly placed beyond the reach of our friends and family. D/XYZ is rewiring the venture investment ecosystem, so it serves everyone, giving growth-stage investment upside back to retail investors by providing public access to the private market.”
D/XYZ has closed a $100M fundraise to enable the launch of its first product, the Destiny Tech100. The Destiny Tech100 will be a portfolio of the top 100 venture-backed private technology companies — providing everyday investors access to these private market leaders for the first time. Early backers of the Destiny Tech100 include the founders of Dropbox and Coinbase; current and former Partners at Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Y Combinator; and cultural icons such as Nas, Keisuke Honda, and Heather Hasson.
“I am aligned with D/XYZ’s belief that access to the innovation economy is important for more than just financial reasons,” said Heather Hasson, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FIGS. “As a society, we must make innovation accessible to all because providing a stake in the future is the first step in inspiring the next generation to take ownership of it.”
Just as SPY is an exchange listed portfolio of 500 of the largest publicly traded companies (S&P 500), and QQQ is an exchange traded fund of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq (Nasdaq 100), the Destiny Tech100 is intended to provide sophisticated, diversified, and liquid exposure to 100 of the top venture-backed technology companies, breaking down barriers that limit private market access.
D/XYZ will do more than just enable access; it is an opportunity to build toward something greater, inspiring and empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs. To support its vision of redefining private market access, D/XYZ is working with mission-aligned investors in the Destiny Tech100, including founders and CEOs of leading future-forward companies such as Plaid, Quora, FIGS, Caviar, Mercury, Superhuman, Screenhero, Runway, Mux, Truepill, Human Interest, Clever, Augur, Chartboost, NerdWallet, and SandboxVR; current and former Partners at Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, Riverwood Capital, Streamlined Ventures, and Better Tomorrow Ventures; early employees and executives at marquee tech companies counting Google, Stripe, Facebook, Snap, and Apple; and a diverse set of figures across competencies, from law firms such as Wilson Sonsini and Gunderson to sports and entertainment figures such as Gunna and Prohgress of Far East Movement.
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About D/XYZ
D/XYZ (pronounced Destiny) is the creator of a family of exchange-traded products that will provide public investment access to private market technology companies. Its first product, the Destiny Tech100, will be a portfolio of the top 100 venture-backed private technology companies. D/XYZ was founded in 2020 by Sohail Prasad and Samvit Ramadurgam on the heels of their success founding Forge, a global private securities marketplace that provides trading, custody, and data infrastructure to meet the needs of high-growth unicorn companies, employees, and investors.
The Destiny Tech100 will include a mixture of large- and medium-cap private tech companies. The collective portfolio of companies will provide access to innovation in an intuitive fashion and will be managed by D/XYZ. For more information, visit destiny.xyz or follow D/XYZ on Instagram and Twitter.
