Polymarket users can now trade on private company events with markets on IPO timing, valuations, and secondary market activity.
The prediction market platform Polymarket is launching markets tied to private company milestones, taking its trading model beyond politics, sports and crypto into the pre-IPO world.
The company said in a May 19 press release that Nasdaq Private Market, a private-market liquidity and data company backed by Nasdaq, will serve as the resolution data provider for the new markets. The contracts may cover valuation milestones, IPO timing and secondary market activity, the press release reads.
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The product doesn’t appear to give users direct equity exposure to SpaceX, OpenAI or other private companies. Instead, users would trade markets on whether specific private-company events happen.
Private companies are staying private for longer, so a lot of the upside happens before regular public-market investors can buy in. Polymarket said nearly 1,600 unicorns now hold more than $5 trillion in combined value, but most of it still limited to institutions, employees and wealthy investors.
Polymarket Targets Private Market
Nasdaq says its Private Market has handled nearly $80 billion in secondary liquidity across more than 1,000 company-sponsored programs and more than 200,000 eligible employee shareholders and investors.
However, the launch is also taking place at a time when prediction markets face growing legal challenges. For example, Bloomberg reported earlier that Polymarket and Kalshi are still allowing trading by Indian customers even though the Indian technology ministry had warned that prediction markets were illegal.
The timing also shows how far prediction markets are moving from their old election-and-sports image. Reuters noted that Polymarket’s private-company markets could involve companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Anduril, among others, while some contracts could involve questions regarding whether OpenAI becomes valued at $1 trillion by the end of 2026.
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