SoFi teams up with PrimaryBid on IPO share placement

PrimaryBid, which provides technology that connects individual investors with issuing companies, will provide the underlying technology for the SoFi platform

U.S. fintech giant SoFi is teaming up with British capital markets platform PrimaryBid Technologies to expand its initial public offering (IPO) share placement business.

SoFi’s new directed share platform, which went live on Wednesday, is designed to allow firms raising capital to allocate a portion of their offering to employees, customers and other individual investors more efficiently than similar services provided by investment banks that underwrite IPOs, SoFi Chief Executive Officer Anthony Noto said in an interview.

SoFi and rival fintechs such as Robinhood have been pushing into early retail IPO access, which has long been the exclusive domain of Wall Street funds.

Last year, SoFi offered retail customers a chance to buy into the IPOs of Instacart and Arm Holdings before shares began trading. Such early access allows investors to snap up a firm’s shares at a discount assuming the share price rises after the stock goes public, though there are no guarantees.

SoFi’s partnership with PrimaryBid will expand its IPO offerings by creating a digital way for firms to place shares with key stakeholders and raise more capital at the IPO stage. That process has historically been clunky and manual, Noto added.

It is the natural evolution of our desire to give investors more and more access to the vehicles that allow the ultra-wealthy to get unique investment opportunities, he said.

PrimaryBid, which provides technology that connects individual investors with issuing companies and counts SoftBank, Fidelity and LSEG among its backers, will provide the underlying technology for the SoFi platform.

Companies want intelligent, targeted investor inclusion at IPO to enfranchise those people who matter to their long-term success, said Anand Sambasivan, CEO of PrimaryBid, in a statement.