Equitybee vs Forge Global 2026

They are different instruments and different kinds of platforms. Forge Global is institutional private-market infrastructure: a secondary marketplace where accredited investors buy and sell actual pre-IPO shares (direct, or through a Forge Fund SPV that holds the shares), plus a data business (Forge Price, the FPMI index, Yahoo Finance distribution), a fund manager, and a trust company offering IRA custody. Equitybee is none of those things — it is not a secondary market and holds no shares for you. It finances a specific employee's stock-option exercise through a single-purpose Series LLC; the employee keeps the shares and contractually owes the series principal, 2-4% annual interest, and a 17-42% share of the funded shares' equity value at a successful liquidity event. On Forge you own shares (or an SPV interest backed by them). On Equitybee you own a contingent claim on one employee's future proceeds — you never appear on the company cap table.

On Forge, direct secondary transactions generally involve purchasing actual private-company shares, subject to issuer transfer restrictions and deal documents ($100,000 standard minimum); Forge Fund SPVs ($5,000 minimum) give you an interest in a vehicle that holds the underlying shares. Either way, you gain exposure to real equity. On Equitybee, no. The funded employee remains the 100% legal owner of the shares. Your Series LLC holds a contractual claim on a portion of that employee's proceeds, contingent on a successful liquidity event. The company is not a participant in the Equitybee offering and has not endorsed it.

It depends which Forge product you use, but Forge's fund route is materially cheaper than Equitybee. A Forge Fund SPV carries a 1-2% one-time placement fee plus fund-level management fees and carried interest per the specific offering documents. A Forge direct secondary trade carries a 2-5% brokerage fee (Form CRS caps it at 5%) plus third-party costs — transfer agent, legal opinion, and escrow — that Forge does not quantify publicly, so you cannot fully model the all-in cost before speaking to a broker. Equitybee carries a 5% front-end brokerage fee on your capital contribution at closing (paid to affiliate Equitybee Securities LLC regardless of outcome), a 5% carried interest on the interest and equity-share portions of proceeds, and a separately-defined Stock Appreciation Amount the templated PPM names but does not quantify — roughly 10% in platform fees before that amount. Separately, the funded employee retains a 17-42% Share Incentive, which is not a fee but caps the equity value the investor receives. Forge's fee gap on direct trades is opacity; Equitybee's is the stacked load plus the capped upside.

No. Forge Price is a proprietary data product calculated daily by Forge Data for hundreds of private companies, derived from secondary transactions, indications of interest, and other inputs. Forge states explicitly that it may rely on a very limited number of inputs, does not necessarily represent the market price of any security, and is not the price at which you could buy or sell. For thinly traded names it may be calculated from a single indication of interest. Treat Forge Price as a directional reference, not an executable quote — it is one of the strongest private-market data products available (now embedded in Yahoo Finance), but it is a data point, not a tradeable price. Equitybee publishes no comparable market-data layer; its per-offer terms appear on the authenticated dashboard and the series' Form D.

Yes. Charles Schwab acquired Forge Global for $660M ($45/share); the deal was announced in November 2025 and closed March 2, 2026. Forge had previously traded publicly (NYSE: FRGE) following a 2022 SPAC merger. Schwab has signaled intent to integrate Forge's private-markets platform with its 46M+ client accounts. Forge continues to operate through three separately registered entities: Forge Securities LLC (SEC-registered broker-dealer, FINRA/SIPC member), Forge Global Advisors LLC (SEC-registered investment adviser), and Forge Trust Co. (South Dakota chartered trust company). Equitybee, by contrast, is an independent company (Equitybee Inc, founded 2017) operating through its own affiliated regulated entities.

Yes, on both. On Equitybee, repayment is contingent on a successful liquidity event (proceeds exceeding principal) and on the individual employee performing on the remittance obligation. If the company fails or never has a qualifying event, the outcome is total loss — Equitybee's own platform-reported MOIC table lists a 0.00x multiple for the bankruptcy outcome, and interest compounds only on success. On Forge, you hold direct shares or SPV interests backed by shares, so your downside is the company's performance: a portfolio company can fail and the position can go to zero. Pre-IPO equity is highly speculative with binary outcomes and no interim income before a liquidity event. Size every position on either platform assuming it can reach zero.

Forge has a tiered structure: Forge Fund SPVs start at $5,000 (the platform's lowest entry point and the appropriate route for most retail accredited investors), while direct secondary transactions require $100,000 standard ($50,000 in limited cases where the issuer permits) — the highest direct minimum among major accessible platforms, with institutional bids typically $1M+. Equitybee minimums vary by offer but are generally around $10,000 per series. Note that if you hold a $5,000 Forge Fund position in a Forge Trust IRA, the fixed custody fees create roughly 5% annual drag — size IRA allocations accordingly.

Neither offers near-term liquidity. Forge imposes no lockup on direct marketplace transactions itself, but individual company transfer restrictions and ROFR provisions apply (a 30-45 day ROFR window per direct trade), and shares that transition from private to public typically carry 90-180 day post-IPO lockups; Forge Fund vehicles have lockup terms per their offering documents. There is no Forge-run secondary exit before a company liquidity event. Equitybee series carry a 7-year term that is extendable indefinitely through a Liquidating Vehicle, with a 180+ day post-IPO lockup, no redemption mechanism, and no secondary market for the product (Equitybee states this directly). On both platforms the realistic exit is a company liquidity event, and Equitybee's duration is open-ended if no event occurs.

They differ by product. For Forge direct secondary purchases, you hold actual shares, so gains are generally capital gains based on your holding period, and Forge itself does not issue a tax document — reporting falls to the issuer or transfer agent depending on structure. Forge Fund SPVs issue a Schedule K-1 (partnership pass-through), targeting late March to mid-April, though the fund cannot issue K-1s until the underlying company provides financial data, so extensions past April 15 are a common outcome. Forge Trust custodial accounts follow standard trust-company reporting, with UBTI risk for leveraged fund vehicles held in an IRA. Equitybee issues a K-1 generally after April 15 (extension is effectively the default); on an event, the interest component may be ordinary income and the Share Incentive a capital gain. QSBS under Section 1202 may be available on qualifying Forge direct purchases because you hold shares; it generally does not apply to Equitybee because you do not. This is not tax advice — consult a qualified adviser and the specific deal documents.

Forge does; Equitybee does not. Forge Trust Co. (a South Dakota chartered trust company) supports Traditional, Roth, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs and Individual 401(k)s holding private company securities — a genuine structural advantage, because competing platforms generally require investors to find a third-party self-directed IRA custodian. Confirmed Forge Trust fees include roughly $50 setup, $200/year, $48/year per private-company position, and $40/transaction, which is about $248/year fixed for one position — roughly 4.96% annual drag on a $5,000 position versus about 0.24% on a $100,000 trade, so the custody route favors larger positions. Equitybee offers no integrated custody; holding an Equitybee series in a retirement account would require a separate self-directed custodian, and the series' contingent-claim structure makes that an unusual fit.

For an investor who wants exposure to actual pre-IPO shares, Forge's Fund SPV route is the more conventional and lower-friction starting point: a $5,000 minimum, a 1-2% placement fee, ROFR handled at the fund level, faster settlement, and the backing of a Schwab-owned, multi-entity platform with one of the most developed data layers in private markets — though the direct marketplace itself is specialist-driven and built for larger tickets, and Forge Price should be read as a reference, not a quote. Equitybee suits a narrower investor who specifically wants the option-funding structure, understands they are buying a contingent claim rather than shares, accepts the ~10% fee stack plus the 17-42% capped upside and the total-loss floor, has read the dashboard terms and the series' Form D rather than the marketed 70% discount, and can build a diversified basket across many series with capital they can lock up indefinitely. Most first-time investors are closer to the first profile than the second.

Forge's fund vehicles are managed by Forge Global Advisors LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser that owes fiduciary duties to fund investors, with administration handled by a third-party administrator (SS&C or equivalent) — though specific fund fee terms (management fee, carried interest) are disclosed only in individual offering documents, not publicly. Equitybee's series LLCs, by contrast, are unaudited per the cFund Master PPM, have no independent fund administrator (the affiliated manager administers), and the manager waives fiduciary duties to investors. Both platforms' broker-dealers are clean: Forge Securities LLC is a FINRA/SIPC member, and Equitybee Securities LLC (CRD 41896) carries no disclosed FINRA enforcement. The divergence is at the vehicle level — RIA-advised, third-party-administered funds versus unaudited, affiliate-administered, fiduciary-waived series.

Not dependably on either. Forge runs a secondary marketplace, so in principle a holder of eligible shares could seek a buyer, but execution is specialist-driven, subject to company transfer restrictions and ROFR, and there is no live order book of standing bids and asks — Forge Price is a data model, not an executable venue. Forge Fund SPV interests follow their offering-document lockups. Equitybee has no redemption mechanism and no secondary market for the product at all. On both platforms, the realistic exit is a company liquidity event, not an early sale.