Monark Markets Raises $8.1M from F-Prime, Grit Capital Partners and Others

Just over a year ago, I wrote about why Grit invested in the pre-seed round of Monark Markets. Ben Haber and Paul Davis were not alone in identifying a multi-trillion dollar market that had never been made accessible to a broad range of investors. But they were unique in figuring out the right model for solving it. Instead of another consumer-facing alts platform, Monark was building a B2B infrastructure layer: an Alts-as-a-Service API that existing broker-dealers could plug into.

Today, Monark announced an $8.1 million Strategic Financing Round led by F-Prime Capital. Grit invested in this round alongside F-Prime. You can read more about the round on Alex Konrad’s Upstarts.

Since we first invested in Monark in 2024, changes to private markets have happened even faster than we expected. Morgan Stanley acquired EquityZen. Charles Schwab paid $660 million for Forge Global, previously the most established independent pre-IPO marketplace. Robinhood just announced that it's taking Robinhood Ventures Fund I public on the NYSE. This is a closed-end fund giving retail investors exposure to private companies like Databricks, Ramp, Stripe, and others. 

On the regulatory side, the SEC quietly eliminated a 23-year-old restriction that had walled off retail investors from private market exposure through registered funds. A presidential executive order pushed to bring private alternatives into 401(k) plans. The House of Representatives passed the INVEST Act, which would allow people to qualify as accredited investors based on financial knowledge rather than just wealth.

Through their partnerships with Vested, Altruist, BBAE, ViewTrade, and Apex Fintech Solutions, Monark's API now reaches hundreds of broker-dealers and 30+ million brokerage accounts. Now clients of these firms can access companies like SpaceX or Stripe directly from the brokerage account they already use.

Ben and Paul have been relentless about this from the beginning: capital efficient, creative about deal structure, brilliant about regulatory complexity. They navigated the broker-dealer registration process at a speed that surprised even people who had done it before. They acquired the LEX Markets assets and IP when the opportunity arose. They partnered with Apex when most companies their size were still figuring out product-market fit.

Congratulations to Ben, Paul, and the whole Monark team. When we invested in Monark, I wrote that the democratization of private companies was a matter of “when not if”. Today, it feels like the time is now. 

To David and F-Prime: so glad to be in this one together.

-Matthew Bellows

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