Does startup equity ever turn into real money pre-IPO?
Well, this isn't a comprehensive list - but with employee tender offers on the rise across private tech, we looked into the numbers.
Findings
- 16,538 employees sold some equity in a tender offer in 2025
- That's the highest annual total ever, in our data.
- About 20% of those employees were actually ex-employees of the company executing the tender. So ex-employees participate far less often than current employees.
- There were about ~900K - 1M employees on the platform in 2025. So...yea, still pretty rarified air.
Feels like the general vibe around tenders has completely shifted from the pre-2020 era. It used to be tender offers were worried over by execs as a potential moment of unwanted attrition. Today it feels like tenders are a major employee retention mechanism.
More employees making money on startup equity - we love to see it 🙏
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