Silicon Prairie, a funding portal as well as a broker-dealer, has noted that it has filed for an Alternative Trading System (ATS) with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The intent is to provide liquidity for traditionally illiquid securities like securities issued under Reg CF in a digital marketplace.
Silicon Prairie also issues securities under an intrastate exemption as well as Reg D and SCOR.
In a comment on LinkedIn by founder and CEO David Duccini, he expressed his hope to go live by May 31, 2021:
“I’m THRILLED to report that the SEC formally recognized our Alternative Trading System (Form-ATS) registration had been filed on Friday and today FINRA reached back out to re-confirm that we would be ready to do a demo in short order.
I’m kind of surprised FINRA came back the same day after filing a response to a few questions they asked last week that we supplied first thing this morning!
I’m cautiously optimistic that we will be able to hit our target go-live date as filed, May 31st. But who knows? They may give us the green light sooner?”
Silicon Prairie is not the only online capital formation platform seeking to operate a marketplace for secondary transactions as other platforms are attempting to do the same. The idea is that by enabling liquidity for early-stage securities investors will be more interested in participating in these offerings as an exit may be available beyond a merger/acquisition or public offering.