Cerity Partners invests in Nasdaq Private Market, gains exclusive access to tender participants

Cerity Partners has struck a strategic partnership with Nasdaq Private Market, including a $10 million investment and an exclusive role advising employees participating in tender offers run on the platform.

The deal pairs a large RIA – Cerity manages about $140 billion – with one of the bigger venues for private-company secondary liquidity as companies remain private longer and rely more on tender programs to return cash to employees and early investors.

Under the arrangement, Cerity Partners becomes the sole wealth partner to NPM’s liquidity program clients, offering employees guidance around equity compensation, taxes and broader planning tied to cashing out private shares.

Cerity will also gain a board seat at NPM through partner and chief growth officer Michael Barry, and its clients will be able to access private company investments available through NPM’s structured programs and secondary marketplace, SecondMarket.

NPM said it facilitated roughly $15 billion of tender offers this year for about 35,000 individuals, highlighting both the scale of employee liquidity events and the demand for planning support. Since its inception more than a decade ago, NPM says it has executed nearly $70 billion in transactions across hundreds of company-sponsored programs. The firms said the partnership is intended to streamline employee liquidity events for finance and HR teams while embedding vetted financial well-being resources into the process.

“Our relationship with Nasdaq Private Market enhances Cerity Partners’ ability to advise clients across the private market ecosystem,” said Kurt Miscinski, president and chief executive officer of Cerity Partners. He added that the firms expect to expand services for corporations and employees through the collaboration.

“Liquidity events are incredibly rewarding, yet they often raise complex financial questions for employees,” said Tom Callahan, chief executive officer of Nasdaq Private Market. He said the partnership is aimed at providing “personalized guidance at the moments they need it most,” while helping companies deliver a more seamless experience.

For advisors, the tie-up underscores continuing interest in private-market exposure among high- and ultra-high-net-worth clients, alongside a growing need to integrate equity-compensation and tax planning with liquidity timelines. The exclusive access to NPM tender participants could also position Cerity as a referral destination for employees seeking advice around concentrated stock, withholding and diversification after a sale.

Cerity is hardly the first RIA business to set its sights on the private company space. Last year, Dynasty Financial Partners unveiled its own strategic partnership with NPM, which plugged Dynasty's network of RIAs into NPM's SecondMarket Liquidity Platform, allowing participants in secondary liquidity events to access investment and tax planning services.

More recently in late October, Dynasty made a strategic investment in Grantd, an AI-driven employee equity compensation platform designed to help advisors and employees navigate corporate stock holdings. This week, Grantd officially unveiled an expansive AI-powered equity comp advice platform, which includes a scoring system that flags key risk areas, a module to design tax-aware strategies for exercising stock options or selling shares, and an AI chatbot to answer equity and tax questions, among other core capabilities.

Dynasty's investment in Grantd was immediately followed by Morgan Stanley's acquisition of EquityZen and Charles Schwab's deal for Forge Global, signaling increased attention from large incumbents on private share liquidity and distribution.