Goldman Sachs Builds Private-Markets Platform to Sell Pre-IPO AI Stakes
The Wall Street bank will fold its alternatives business into a new unit with teams for direct private-company stakes and secondary trading, targeting wealthy clients chasing companies like SpaceX and Stripe.
WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs is opening a private-markets platform to sell wealthy clients direct access to stakes in fast-growing private companies, as demand for pre-IPO artificial-intelligence firms climbs.
The platform combines the bank’s existing alternatives business with two new teams, one for direct private-company stakes and one for secondary trading, according to techechelon.com. Matt Doherty will lead the new unit and keep overseeing the alternatives business, according to economictimes.com, which cited an internal memo reported by Reuters. “The changes are aimed at building on the growth of Goldman Sachs’ alternatives business while strengthening its private markets platform,” the bank said in the memo, according to economictimes.com. The move pulls ordinary wealthy investors into a market long reserved for institutions and insiders, just as the biggest technology valuations form before any public listing.
The bank’s Alternative Capital Markets business, which manages alternative investments for wealthy clients, anchors the new platform, according to economictimes.com. Goldman is also creating a dedicated private-company investments team by merging its fiduciary single-asset investment business with its family-office direct-investment business, according to economictimes.com. The effort targets clients chasing names such as SpaceX and Stripe, according to techechelon.com. High-growth startups now stay private far longer, letting early investors capture valuation gains that once arrived only after an IPO, according to economictimes.com. Elon Musk’s SpaceX stayed private for years before going public last month, and its rising valuation stoked appetite for private-market exposure, according to economictimes.com.
For a reader without a Goldman account, the development signals where wealth forms and gets captured before the public can buy in. Gains from the companies Goldman is packaging flow to family offices and high-net-worth clients, while retail investors often get their first chance only at the IPO, at a richer price. This is not the first time Wall Street has raced to widen private-market access, and the appetite for private assets has already pushed several banks to broaden offerings for wealthy clients, according to economictimes.com. Goldman’s push arrives weeks after the firm reported better-than-expected second-quarter profit, helped by a recovery in dealmaking and record equities trading revenue during volatility tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict, according to economictimes.com. Goldman has not announced a public launch date or client-onboarding timeline, and the next detail should come from the bank itself. Goldman Sachs, founded in 1869 as a commercial-paper dealer, built its modern reputation on trading and underwriting, outlasting rivals such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers when those firms collapsed in 2008. Its willingness to package the assets clients crave, from mortgage securities in the 2000s to private stakes today, has repeatedly defined both its profits and its risks.