On May 14, 2026 Cerebras Systems officially stopped being a pre-IPO story. Priced at $185/share, it brought in $5.55 billion and quickly opened for trading on Nasdaq under ticket symbol CBRS at approximately a $49 billion valuation, while orders outnumbered available shares more than 20 times over. Cerebras System stock can now be brought through any regular brokerage account.
Still valuable is the mechanisms through which access to Cerebras was granted in its private years through secondary marketplaces as this is likely how the market will provide the next AI chip company to file. This September 2026 article explores how five companies enabled this access.
EquityZen
Liquidity model: EquityZen connects early investors and employees with illiquid shares to accredited buyers. Via direct transfers or an SPV structure, until a company goes public.
Accreditation: The SEC standard requires at least $200,000 individual income ($300,000 jointly), or $1 million net worth excluding the primary home.
Pricing: Buyers and sellers negotiate prices off EquityZen’s order flow and the company then approves deals to ensure they are not in violation of transfer restrictions.
Pre-IPO sale vs waiting: Sellers can secure liquidity rather than hold their shares through the standard lockup, in exchange for a flat fee they don’t have to pay for an IPO.
Use Cases: Employees looking to cash out at the time of vesting equity, funds building late-stage exposure, investors looking to trim a concentrated holding.
Mechanics: The vast majority of deals occur through EquityZen’s SPV, though larger transactions require company approval and go through right of first refusal processes.
Fees: After Morgan Stanley’s acquisition, fees on the buyer-side decreased to 2.5% in early 2026 (2% above $1m from 5% pre-acquisition) while seller fees also decreased to 2.5%.
Cerebras angle: EquityZen recently played an SPV role in the early-stage financing of Cerebras Systems and the shares transformed into common shares once CBRS took off with its May 2026 IPO that began trading after all previous investments had converted to public stock.
Risk: No guaranteed time to exit, marks may change in value between round A and the last financing round, and companies can go out of business during their private stage.
Hiive
Liquidity model: Unlike matched-deal solutions, it has a live, hourly updated order book enabling accredited buyers and sellers to view real-time bid/ask quotes on about 3,000 listings including the Cerebras liquidity report drawn by Hiive on its coverage of the AI company’s last pre-IPO transaction. Hiive provides regular updates on its coverage via its LinkedIn page.
Accreditation: Uses the same SEC standards while non-accredited sellers can enter listings through an issuer portal but can’t make purchases.
Pricing: The presence of a live order book enables actual bid/ask spreads, rather than a single negotiated price; Hiive’s Hiive50 provides information about trending valuations of the names it covers most frequently.
Pre-IPO sale vs waiting: Although a live order book is better than playing a guessing game, it requires a higher commission rate; the June 2026 Form CRS shows maximum fees of 4.85% for buyers and 5.75% for sellers, with discounts for deals at higher transaction sizes.
Use Cases: These can range from individuals requiring liquidation before an IPO, to private equity funds seeking to capture upside exposure, as well as earlier investors looking to rebalance their books before the first lock-up expiration.
Mechanics: Individual peers require the issuing corporation’s authorization, as well as a first right of refusal waiver. Private equity deals often pass through Delaware SPVs and avoid recurring management fees.
Fees: For sellers expect a commission rate as high as 5.75% and buyers up to 4.85%. Both tiers drop at much higher deal values with standard deals requiring a minimum of $25,000 per transaction but increasing to $100,000 on high volume trades.
Cerebras angle: Hiive’s investment insights for Cerebras reported it as one of its most active AI infrastructure stock tickers before its IPO date in May where CBRS began trading publicly.
Risk: Higher commission rates versus others, failure to get approval for each direct stock transfer on the grounds of right of first refusal and ultimately it cannot assure the same execution as with public stocks.
Nasdaq Private Market
Liquidity model: A company-sponsored liquidity model where you buy or sell, plus a closed valuation database, instead of a public market.
Accreditation: Standard SEC qualification to join programs and more optional eligibility restrictions imposed by the issued in company-sponsored offers.
Pricing: NPM’s data and intelligence tool prices over 4,000 venture companies daily, using valuation data from financings and reported private activity.
Pre-IPO sale vs waiting: Employee use of tender offers windows ensures structured exit events that are authorized by the issuer, but also requires the issuer to participate, forcing you to participate during those specific windows.
Use Cases: Employees in large companies who are given multiple exit opportunities, institutions seeking priced data, cap table administration in pre-IPO situations.
Mechanics: Sales transactions occur within pre-defined, company-selected windows. Your ability to buy/sell, and your eligibility for that program is controlled by the company. When executed, ownership transfers take precedence over fund settlement.
Fees: No standard retail pricing exists, this information varies on the program. Pricing is provided for individual offers in disclosed windows only.
Cerebras angle: NPM kept track of Cerebras before its IPO; they removed it from the list for post-IPO tracking on their site.
Risk: There is no opportunity to sell in an open market, or at your choosing.
Zanbato
Liquidity model: An institutionally oriented trading platform connected to ZXData composed of closed trades and reported marks across several thousand private names.
Accreditation: Generic SEC accreditation applies, but transaction volumes and institutional approach mean that the buyers are more likely to be funds, bigger checks, rather than new to market retail investors.
Pricing: ZXData relies on $20 billion closed trade volumes and $200 billion of buy/sell offers, with $70 billion in marks.
Pre-IPO sale vs waiting: Being able to have data-driven pricing brings confidence to larger institutional investors that they aren’t underselling, but smaller holders have less hand-holding compared to a retail focused player.
Use Cases: Institutions to calibrate secondary market valuation estimates, funds to execute larger secondary block trades, corporates to use ZXData pricing as an input to cap table modeling.
Mechanics: The trades are a bilateral negotiation with Zanbato providing a price frame of reference. Issuer authorization and transfer restriction will apply.
Fees: There is no public retail commission structure provided as negotiations are per transaction.
Cerebras angle: ZXData provided a feed for Cerebras Systems (among other late stage AI infrastructure companies), post IPO that function shifts to whatever chip stock is next.
Risk: Less friendly onboarding and user experience for retail, pricing is derived from historical prices rather than an assured buy and minimum ticket sizes can exclude smaller participants.
Caplight
Liquidity model: Built around MarketPrice which is a proprietary mechanism for liquid-venture companies, which forms the core of a data and pricing set built on executed trades.
Accreditation: SEC accredited, the company’s product is positioned more as a data and pricing tool than an execution tool.
Pricing: MarketPrice’s estimates are built using a combination of funding round data, executed trades and order flow with filtering for opportunistic bids.
Pre-IPO sale vs waiting: Sellers are offered a credible reference price for negotiations, choosing to await an IPO means circumventing the cost to confirm this information.
Use Cases: Institutions interested in acquisitions, business performing valuations or retail traders considering a bid and wanting to compare it to MarketPrice.
Mechanics: Information gathered from MarketPrice guides trade execution, transfer approvals are subject to the issuer.
Fees: No publicly listed individual user fees, commercialized via data subscriptions for financial institutions and their employees.
Cerebras angle: Caplight’s Cerebras page noted no public IPO price was available while the chipmaker stayed private, which was resolved once public trading started.
Risk: Pricing reflects a model, not an assured marked value, less hand-holding is provided to individual investors than elsewhere on the market.
Summary Comparison Table
|
Platform |
Typical Fee |
Feature |
Best For |
Limitation |
|
EquityZen |
2.5% buyer / 2.5% seller |
Morgan Stanley-backed SPV funds |
First-time accredited buyers |
No guaranteed time to exit. |
|
Hiive |
Up to 4.75% buyer/ 5.75% seller |
Live, hourly order book with Hiive50 |
Investors who want visible price discovery |
Higher headline commissions than EquityZen |
|
Nasdaq Private Market |
Set per program |
4,000+ company valuation database |
Companies running sponsored tender offers |
No open marketplace outside issuer windows |
|
Zanbato |
Negotiated per deal |
ZXData institutional pricing feed |
Funds and larger institutional checks |
Less retail-friendly onboarding |
|
Caplight |
Data-access model |
MarketPrice algorithmic valuation |
Investors wanting a data-backed price anchor |
Not a direct-to-retail execution |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I invest in Cerebras before its IPO?
You cannot. Cerebras completed its IPO on 14 May 2026 and it trades as CBRS on the open market.
What happened to secondary market Cerebras shares?
The investors who purchased them on private marketplaces usually got their corresponding public shares after the IPO subject to lock up provisions set in place through their unique purchase agreement.
Do I need to be an accredited investor to buy Cerebras on secondary markets?
You need to be an accredited investor, although some marketplaces have more lax regulations on who sells shares on their platform. It must be noted that Cerebras is no longer a Pre-IPO.
Conclusion
The Problem: Accessing pre-IPO AI leaders like Cerebras before public listing requires navigating complex, illiquid secondary markets.
Key Takeaways: Platforms offer unique trade-offs: EquityZen provides SPV access, Hiive features live order books, NPM relies on company-sponsored windows, while Zanbato and Caplight serve data-focused institutions.
Next Steps
a. Verify SEC accreditation status
b. Compare platform-specific fees and liquidity structures
c. Prepare for the next private AI filing
