Find out how Morgan Stanley’s purchase of EquityZen could reshape access to private markets and influence investor participation in pre-IPO trading.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) has agreed to acquire EquityZen, a United States-based private-shares trading platform, in a deal that underscores Wall Street’s growing push into pre-IPO markets. The transaction, announced on October 29, 2025, will give Morgan Stanley direct access to one of the largest digital marketplaces for private-company equity, reflecting its intent to expand beyond traditional investment banking and wealth-management models.

The deal’s financial terms were not disclosed, but industry analysts estimate that the acquisition could be valued in the several-hundred-million-dollar range, given EquityZen’s extensive client base and transaction volumes. The deal is expected to close in early 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals.

Morgan Stanley’s move follows a consistent strategy to capture value from companies that remain private for longer, a phenomenon that has redefined equity markets over the past decade. The acquisition of EquityZen signals the bank’s ambition to dominate both the supply and demand sides of the private-markets ecosystem by linking high-growth companies, employee shareholders, and investors seeking exposure to startups before they go public.

Why is Morgan Stanley betting on the private-shares marketplace in 2025?

Private markets have grown from a niche asset class to a major pillar of global investing. According to data from Preqin, private-equity and venture-capital assets under management surpassed USD 13 trillion in 2024, doubling in less than five years. Startups such as SpaceX, Stripe, OpenAI, and ByteDance have remained privately held, creating pent-up demand among institutional and high-net-worth investors eager to gain early access.

EquityZen’s model bridges this gap. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York, the platform facilitates secondary sales of private-company shares, allowing employees and early investors to monetise their holdings before an IPO or acquisition. Over the past decade, EquityZen has processed more than 49,000 transactions across 450 companies and has registered more than 800,000 users.

For Morgan Stanley, acquiring this infrastructure creates a seamless entry point into an increasingly lucrative market segment. Executives familiar with the matter told Reuters that the platform will eventually integrate into the bank’s wealth-management technology stack, enabling Morgan Stanley’s financial advisors to offer curated private-market opportunities to qualified clients.

The timing is strategic. Amid prolonged IPO droughts, the average age of a venture-backed company before going public now exceeds 12 years. This shift has concentrated enormous value in the private space, one that traditional banks and asset managers are racing to access.

How the deal fits Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management and workplace-solutions strategy

Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management division has been the centerpiece of its growth strategy under CEO Ted Pick, who succeeded long-time leader James Gorman in 2024. The business manages over USD 6.3 trillion in client assets, and its evolution from brokerage-based services to technology-enabled platforms has been rapid.

By acquiring EquityZen, Morgan Stanley is positioning itself to capture both transactional fees and advisory relationships stemming from private-company liquidity events. The move complements earlier investments in digital wealth tools, including the acquisition of E*TRADE and Eaton Vance. It also strengthens the bank’s “Workplace Solutions” ecosystem, which already provides equity-compensation management for over 200 corporate clients through its partnership with Carta.

Analysts believe that EquityZen’s integration could allow Morgan Stanley to connect its employee-stock-plan participants directly with secondary-market liquidity, offering both sides of the trade within one ecosystem. Such synergy could significantly expand the firm’s recurring-revenue base, a key priority as interest-rate volatility squeezes traditional trading and investment-banking profits.

How the acquisition strengthens Morgan Stanley’s competitive positioning in private markets

The move gives Morgan Stanley a technological advantage at a time when competition for private-market access is intensifying. Other major players — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS Group — have been building internal marketplaces or forging partnerships with fintech startups that facilitate private-share transactions.

Unlike traditional private-equity funds that require large minimum commitments, EquityZen offers fractional participation, often as low as USD 10,000, opening the door to smaller investors who meet accredited-investor criteria. For Morgan Stanley, this democratisation of access aligns with its push to expand services for mass-affluent and emerging-wealth clients.

The transaction also helps the bank capture valuable data from the private-company ecosystem — including valuation trends, liquidity patterns, and investor sentiment — insights that can be monetised through advisory, research, and investment-banking pipelines.

Institutional investors are likely to view this acquisition as an enabler of future secondary-market efficiency, reducing information asymmetry that has long plagued the private-equity space.

What are the key integration and regulatory considerations for Morgan Stanley and EquityZen?

While the integration presents opportunities, it also carries operational and regulatory complexity. EquityZen operates a technology-driven marketplace that must comply with securities laws governing secondary transactions of restricted shares. Bringing that framework under a global systemically important bank’s supervision will likely invite heightened scrutiny from U.S. regulators, particularly the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Morgan Stanley is expected to align EquityZen’s compliance model with its broader risk-management protocols, ensuring transparency and investor protection. At the same time, the bank will need to maintain EquityZen’s agility and digital focus, attributes that differentiate it from legacy brokerage systems.

Industry analysts expect the transition to occur in phases, starting with maintaining EquityZen’s brand and independent operation until full systems integration by 2026.

How are investors reacting to Morgan Stanley’s expansion into private-market infrastructure?

Shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) were largely steady following the announcement, trading near USD 88 on the New York Stock Exchange as of October 30, 2025. Institutional sentiment has remained neutral to moderately positive, with analysts noting that the acquisition is strategically sound but not immediately accretive to earnings.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, fund flows into financial-sector ETFs holding Morgan Stanley stock have shown mild inflows over the past month, suggesting investor confidence in the bank’s broader growth direction. Analysts from several brokerages reiterated “Buy” or “Hold” ratings, citing Morgan Stanley’s consistent focus on recurring-revenue business lines such as wealth management and asset management.

In the medium term, the acquisition could enhance the bank’s return-on-equity trajectory if successfully integrated, given the high-margin nature of secondary-market transactions.

What this deal reveals about the future of Wall Street and private-market evolution

The acquisition of EquityZen reinforces a larger transformation in global capital markets — one where the boundary between public and private investment continues to blur. The democratization of private markets, accelerated by fintech innovation, is turning what was once an illiquid and opaque domain into a semi-transparent ecosystem.

For investors, this could mean increased access to late-stage private companies, albeit with continued risks around pricing, liquidity, and regulatory clarity. For startups, platforms such as EquityZen offer an alternative to traditional IPOs, allowing them to manage shareholder liquidity without public-market disclosure obligations.

Morgan Stanley’s move mirrors a broader institutional shift: banks are no longer waiting for IPO pipelines to reopen but are instead building the infrastructure to intermediate private capital directly. This aligns with how global asset allocators — from sovereign wealth funds to family offices — are repositioning portfolios toward long-duration, high-growth private assets.

Industry experts suggest that as interest rates stabilise, the combination of liquidity demand and investor appetite could spark further consolidation in this space. Rival deals are likely to follow, with investment banks seeking scale and data control over the next generation of private-market trading systems.

How does Morgan Stanley’s EquityZen deal reshape its long-term strategy in private markets?

From a strategic standpoint, the acquisition underscores Morgan Stanley’s recognition that the next wave of capital-markets growth lies outside public exchanges. Owning a technology platform like EquityZen provides the firm with structural leverage in the liquidity cycle of venture-backed companies, effectively embedding the bank earlier in the value chain of corporate finance.

The move also aligns with the long-term vision articulated by CEO Ted Pick, who aims to sustain Morgan Stanley’s shift toward fee-based, digitally integrated businesses. Analysts expect the EquityZen platform to be embedded within the firm’s advisory offerings, creating bundled products that combine private-share exposure, estate planning, and alternative-asset advisory.

As a result, Morgan Stanley could emerge as a central gatekeeper for private-market participation, shaping how startups, employees, and investors interact long before a company ever considers going public.

The broader implication is clear: the future of Wall Street will be defined not only by trading floors and IPO bell ceremonies but also by the platforms that manage liquidity in the invisible markets of private capital.

What are the key highlights investors and analysts should note from Morgan Stanley’s acquisition of EquityZen?

• Morgan Stanley announced plans to acquire EquityZen, a leading private-shares trading platform, to expand its private-market infrastructure.

• The acquisition supports CEO Ted Pick’s strategy of growing recurring-revenue businesses such as wealth management and workplace solutions.

• EquityZen has facilitated over 49,000 transactions and registered 800,000 users, offering Morgan Stanley an established digital marketplace.

• The transaction is expected to close in early 2026, pending regulatory approvals, and will integrate with Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management network.

• Investor sentiment toward Morgan Stanley stock remains neutral-to-positive, with analysts viewing the acquisition as strategically sound but not immediately earnings-accretive.

• The deal highlights a larger Wall Street pivot toward private-market liquidity and fintech-enabled capital-market innovation.

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