Your 409A is stale. Here's what the secondary market says.

4 min read Original article ↗

102 tracked · 88 private·Free · No account·June 18, 2026

Your 409A is stale.
Here's the real number.

See what investors are actually paying for shares across 88 private unicorns — OpenAI, Stripe, Anthropic, Revolut, Databricks, and 83 more.

2 minutes · No account · Material sources cited

Free — email unlocks full breakdownSources cited · data reviewed regularlyMethodology 100% transparent

Example output — enter your own grant details for real numbers

privatepulse.online/calculator

CompanyAnthropic

2,000 RSUs · 4yr/1-cliff · 24 mo vested (50%)

Estimated value of your vested equity

$420,000range $244K – $659K

Secondary market

$995B

+

3

% vs primary ·

Hiive

·

Jun 2026

B · Secondary-implied

$450K

C · Primary time-decay

$416K

Calculate my equity →

Shareworks, Carta, and Fidelity track your vesting schedule.
They don't show you what an outside investor would pay for your shares today.

PrivatePulse aggregates secondary market signals from Hiive and Forge across 88 private unicorns (102 tracked · 88 private), and compares them to primary round valuations — so you can see the gap between your grant letter and the real market.

Why employees can't answer this question today

7+

years

from grant to liquidity

The median time from option grant to IPO has more than doubled since 2000. You live with illiquid paper for most of your tenure.

0

updates

between funding rounds

Most employees only learn what their grant is worth when the press writes about a new funding round — often 12 to 24 months apart.

5%

premium

median secondary vs. last round (6 verified)

Your equity management tool shows your vesting schedule. It doesn't show what an outside investor would pay for your shares today.

Four methods. One honest range.

Every method has a blind spot. Together they form a range that's much harder to be wildly wrong about.

A

Peer-multiple

EV/Revenue multiples of public comparable companies, adjusted with a 20–35% private illiquidity discount. Anchored to public market sentiment.

B

Secondary-implied

Recency-weighted average of actual bid/ask/trade prices on Hiive and Forge — what investors are paying today in the secondary market.

This is the number your Shareworks or Carta dashboard will never show you — what an informed investor is willing to pay on the open market today.

C

Primary time-decay

Last primary round valuation, adjusted for headcount growth and sector multiple shifts since that date. The ground truth with drift applied.

D

Sector momentum

Sector ETF returns since the last primary round, used as a market proxy to catch cases where no secondary data exists.

How accurate is this, really?

We'd rather tell you upfront what this tool can't do than pretend we know your exit price. Here's the honest list.

01

Compared against real rounds

Where subsequent funding rounds are public, we track our mid-point against the actual outcome. Across our tracked companies, the mid-point has typically fallen within the range of what the next round confirmed. You can inspect every cited source directly on each company page.

02

We don't know your cap table

Preferred stock, liquidation preferences, ratchets and participation rights can change your exit by 30–70%. We assume a clean common-stock waterfall. In a down-exit, your actual outcome may be much worse.

03

Secondary ≠ what you'd net

Secondary prices reflect what an outside investor pays for a single share — not what you'd actually receive after tax, ROFR discounts, transfer restrictions and timing.

04

Data is reviewed, not live

Market-derived inputs (ETF multiples, peer revenue growth) refresh automatically where available. Company fundamentals, funding rounds, and reported signals are manually reviewed and timestamped per company. Treat any number here as a starting point, not a price.

05

Not financial or tax advice

We are not your CPA, financial adviser, or attorney. Before exercising options, accepting a tender, or making any tax election, talk to a licensed professional who knows your full situation.

06

All inputs are auditable

Every primary round, secondary price and peer multiple we use is linked to a public source on the company page. If a number looks off to you, follow the citation — you'll find it.

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