NEW YORK, Feb. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nasdaq Private Market, a leading provider of liquidity, capital and investment solutions for private companies, employee shareholders and investors, today announced significant enhancements to its Transfer & Settlement business. The firm introduced AI-powered trade ingestion, automated agreement generation, and workflow management tools designed to dramatically simplify and accelerate the settlement of private market transactions.
Settling private market transactions is fundamentally different from public markets. Unlike standardized public market infrastructure, private market settlements vary widely by issuer, lack unified processes, and often take months to complete. These challenges create friction for private companies, buyers, and sellers alike - and slow the velocity of private market liquidity.
NPM’s mission is to modernize private market infrastructure. As part of that effort, the firm has been working closely with private companies to streamline the workflow from the moment two counterparties match on a transaction through the point at which shares and cash are fully transferred and settled.
“Private market settlement has historically been manual, fragmented, and slow,” said Andrew Kroculick, COO at NPM. “Our goal is to bring structure, speed, and reliability to a process that was never designed to scale – while partnering directly with issuers to respect their unique requirements.”
Addressing the Core Challenges of Private Market Settlement
Today, two issues most significantly hinder private market settlement:
- A lack of standardized processes across private companies, each with its own transfer rules, documentation, and approval requirements.
- Extended settlement timelines, driven by manual coordination, document handling, and back-and-forth between multiple parties.
NPM addresses these challenges by working directly with issuers to standardize settlement workflows on a company-by-company basis, while leveraging technology to reduce manual effort and execution risk.
AI-Powered Settlement Infrastructure
As part of its latest investment in modernizing private market infrastructure, NPM has applied artificial intelligence across its transfer and settlement workflows, including:
- LLM-based trade ingestion, enabling faster and more accurate intake of trade details and legal documents
- Automated agreement generation and signing, reducing delays tied to document preparation and execution
- End-to-end workflow management tooling, improving transparency, coordination, and accountability across all parties
Together, these enhancements transform a historically bespoke and manual process into one that is more standardized, scalable, and efficient, improving private company control.
Proven Scale and Impact
NPM’s Transfer & Settlement business has demonstrated significant scale and momentum:
- $1.1 billion in total transaction value settled across 2,000 trades
- $650 million settled across 1,200 trades in 2025 alone
- 150 private company clients partner with NPM to manage transfer and settlement
- Transactions settled through NPM close an average of 12 days faster than those settled outside the platform
“By combining issuer partnerships with modern technology and AI, we’re materially reducing the time and complexity it takes to close private market transactions,” said Tom Callahan, CEO of NPM. “This is a critical step toward building the infrastructure private markets need to support the growth in volume we’re seeing as a result of companies staying private longer and the value building in private company shares.”
About Nasdaq Private Market (NPM)
Nasdaq Private Market provides liquidity, investment, wealth and data solutions for private companies, employees, and investors throughout each stage of the pre-IPO lifecycle. Since inception over a decade ago, NPM has executed nearly $70 billion in transactional volume for 200,000+ individual eligible employee shareholders and investors across 900+ company-sponsored liquidity programs. Founded within Nasdaq, Inc. in 2013, today NPM is an independent company with strategic investments from Nasdaq, Allen & Company, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Cerity Partners, Citi, DRW Venture Capital, Goldman Sachs, HiJoJo Partners, Morgan Stanley, Optiver, UBS, and Wells Fargo. Learn more at www.nasdaqprivatemarket.com. Visit LinkedIn and X for the latest company news.
Media Contact Sam Tortora Chief Growth Officer and Chief Marketing Officer samantha.tortora@npm.com
