Polymarket, the prediction market platform, is launching markets tied to private-company milestones, giving users a way to trade on outcomes such as valuations, IPO timing and secondary-market activity.
The company announced the launch in a May 19 press release, saying Nasdaq Private Market, a provider of liquidity and data infrastructure for private-company shares, will serve as the resolution data provider under an "exclusive agreement."
Instead, users trade yes-or-no prediction contracts on company events, with markets resolved using Nasdaq Private Market's data on primary and secondary market activity.
The first markets reportedly include names such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic and Anduril, according to the Financial Times. Those are private companies that ordinary investors usually can't buy through a brokerage account before an IPO.
Polymarket said the launch is aimed at a private-market gap. Nearly 1,600 unicorns, startups valued at more than $1 billion, now hold more than $5 trillion in cumulative value, but direct access to that value is mostly limited to institutions and wealthy investors.
Shayne Coplan, Polymarket's founder and CEO, said the launch brings prediction-market access to "one of the last frontiers of financial markets that retail participants have never been able to access."