Polymarket, Nasdaq Private Market Launch Unicorn IPO Markets

Polymarket has partnered with Nasdaq Private Market to offer real-time prediction markets that reference NPM’s transaction and pricing records for private companies.

The markets will cover specific milestones such as reaching a stated valuation, timing of an initial public offering and pricing of secondary-share transactions. More private-company markets are expected to appear on the platform in the coming weeks.

Polymarket plans to use Nasdaq Private Market’s trade and pricing data to resolve outcome-based contracts. Under the agreement, NPM will provide authoritative records of negotiated sales and validated price points that Polymarket will consult to determine whether contract conditions have been met.

Markets on Polymarket use binary Yes/No contracts that settle at $1 if the specified outcome occurs. Contract prices trade between $0.01 and $0.99 and are intended to reflect the market’s probability estimate of the event.

The partnership provides access to about 1,600 global unicorns tracked by Nasdaq Private Market, assets the companies estimate are collectively valued at more than $5 trillion. Polymarket characterized the arrangement as widening access to private-company information that has typically been available to institutional investors and accredited buyers.

Polymarket said retail traders will be able to use the new markets to hedge or speculate on pre-IPO developments. Institutional participants can use the crowd-sourced probability estimates as a supplemental signal alongside traditional research and transaction data. Pricing, eligibility and regulatory limits for each contract will be disclosed on Polymarket’s platform as markets launch.

Polymarket has recorded periods of billions of dollars in weekly volume during major events and has formed partnerships with financial-market operators, including ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The platform has been discussed in private-market valuations at roughly $8 billion to $9 billion.

In the announcement, Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan wrote, “For the first time, anyone can engage with the outcomes driving value at the world’s most consequential private companies.” The companies said NPM’s institutional-grade data will replace less formal information sources when resolving contracts.

Nasdaq Private Market operates a platform for private-company liquidity and secondary transactions and will make its records available to Polymarket for the limited purpose of determining whether contract-defined events have occurred. The companies did not provide a detailed rollout schedule beyond saying additional markets will be added in the coming weeks.