Forge Global at Piper Sandler Conference: Strategic Transformation in Focus

On Thursday, 05 June 2025, Forge Global Holdings (NYSE:FRGE) presented at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Trading Conference. CEO Kelly Rodriguez outlined a cautiously optimistic future, emphasizing strong Q1 revenue amidst market volatility. The company is undergoing significant transformation, focusing on technology and democratizing private market access, yet faces challenges like SEC hurdles.

Key Takeaways

• Forge Global reported its strongest revenue quarter in years during Q1.
• The company is investing in technology and data partnerships for price discovery.
• Aims to achieve adjusted EBITDA profitability by 2026.
• Focuses on democratizing access to private markets, targeting both accredited and non-accredited investors.
• Exploring tokenization to fractionalize assets and enhance market access.

Financial Results

• Revenue: Achieved the strongest revenue quarter in years during Q1.
• Data Revenue: Currently, data contributes less than 5% to total revenues.
• Profitability: Targeting adjusted EBITDA profitability by 2026, with a focus on reducing cash burn.

Operational Updates

• Technology: Developing a globally extensible, highly automated platform.
• Data Partnerships: Formed alliances to enhance reliable price discovery.
• Asset Management: Acquired Acquidity Capital Management to offer ETF-like products.
• Market Access: Seeking SEC approval for a fund allowing non-accredited investors to enter the private market.
• Distribution: Plans to integrate technology into brokerages and wealth complexes.
• Tokenization: Investigating asset fractionalization via tokenization.
• Regulation: Engaging with policymakers to reduce regulatory burdens.
• Competition: Acknowledges competition from Nasdaq Private Markets and others.

Future Outlook

• Market Growth: Anticipates a more mature and globally accessible private market.
• Competitive Landscape: Expects the emergence of a few key players offering global market access.
• Data Ubiquity: Foresees private market data becoming as common as public market data.
• Investment Options: Envisions a market offering single-name stocks and passive products.
• Timeframe: Significant impact expected in approximately five years.

Q&A Highlights

• Market Volatility: Maintains a cautiously optimistic outlook despite volatility.
• IPO Market: Anticipates the IPO market to open up while monitoring macro uncertainties.
• Investor Comfort: Notes increased investor comfort post-2021 "great reset."
• Turnover Rate: Aims to increase private market turnover from the current low rate by adding balance sheet capital.
• Regulation: Expects continued regulatory scrutiny but sees potential benefits in reducing burdens.
• Texas Stock Exchange: Recognizes efforts to attract companies to go public.

For further insights, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Trading Conference:

Pat Mollies, Host, Global Change Trading Companies: Alright. Welcome back, everyone, to the twenty twenty five Global Change Trading Conference. I am Pat Mollies. Hey, Doug. Global Change Trading Companies.

Our next guest is Kelly Rodriguez, CEO of Forge Global. Forge is a private securities marketplace headquartered in San Francisco, California. We went public a little over three years ago now. Thank you so much for joining us, Kelly.

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Pat Mollies, Host, Global Change Trading Companies: Alright. So, private markets are highly

Patrick, Interviewer: correlated to the IPO market and the broader capital markets. You posted the strongest revenue quarter in a few years in the first quarter. How are you feeling about the current market environment given all the volatility we’ve seen and what’s your kind of outlook here as we head into the back half of the year?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. So look, we’re we’re cautiously optimistic about this year. We came out of 2024, like everybody else, feeling like 2025 would finally be the year when the IPO market opens up. And look, there’s probably 40 to 60 companies that over the last three years have been waiting for that to happen, but we are in a period where every day and every week we see some volatility in terms of the overall macro messaging in the world, so we are watching what that looks like, but I can tell you this, coming here today, I was looking at pipeline and the indicators and they look strong. So, we’re pretty excited about the rest of

Patrick, Interviewer: the year. That’s good. And it seems like it’s Did it It sounds like it paused for a little bit and then it opened back up. Do you think that we’ve reached a point where people feel more comfortable dipping their toe in the water in the private market?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: I wouldn’t say that, but I would say that what we’ve seen since the great reset, we referred to it in 2021 when valuations hit all time highs. We have seen a consistent move back into the market, and I think people are a lot more comfortable with their ability to get in and out now. And so the early indicators, we typically report on this on a monthly basis, but the early indicators about IOI interest is as strong as it’s ever been.

Patrick, Interviewer: Mhmm. So, if we move past the transactional side of the business, you’ve been doing a lot on the data side, you’ve announced a number of partnerships, you announced the acquisition of Acquidity Capital Management. Can you speak to just the broader push to kind of move private markets forward and and Forge’s role longer term in in that vision?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: So Forge is in the middle, actually I’d say the closing innings of a major transformation. And we believe three years ago when we started making these investments, and it’s been a difficult period of time in the markets overall as a public company to make investments at the scale that we’ve done it. But the three big bets were, let’s roll out a highly automated experience that can be global and extensible, and we’ve teased that that’s coming soon. The data partnerships that you referred to are all about people looking for a reliable price discovery, a trusted price discovery for what a private share is worth. So the ubiquity of Forge’s data everywhere is super important to the market and CNBC and Yahoo and ICE all agree.

And then this asset management play that we made with liquidity. One of the things that we should all recognize is as private market becomes mainstream, just like public markets, people want to get into products that aren’t just single name stocks. They want to get into what effectively are the ETF version of the private market. So the liquidity deal was done specifically to offer a slice of the top 60 names as the first publicly traded fund that operates on an index passive basis, and that’s just the beginning. So we think that is a combination of price discovery access and technology standardization.

That’s the winning long term bet.

Patrick, Interviewer: And historically, you know, being able to invest in a private company, you’ve had to be an accredited investor, but like you mentioned, there’s these, you know, fund structures that are popping up that are going to be able to break down those walls. What, can you talk about how the fund is structured to where you can distribute it to retail investors, and what are some of like the hurdles that still need to be crossed to kind of make that fund structure a reality?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah, so the first big hurdle is the SEC, and we’re in that process now. And just like every other publicly traded fund, there’s liquidity requirements, there’s requirements that we’re able to accurately set ATVs for these shares. And I’d say we’re finally getting to the point in the market where we can do that. Now to the extent we get through, and we think we will later this year, then non accredited investors will be able to participate in the private market. That’s a big deal and I think wealth platforms all around the world and RIAs all around the world that want to put their clients into the exposure will give them the option to do that.

But we’re also seeing some other fund structures which we’ve reported on previously around SPVs. And so I’d say, to the first question, a publicly listed fund that’s got that exposure is probably the first step in opening up the access to non accredited.

Patrick, Interviewer: If we think about the data side of the business, I think today it’s less than 5% of your revenues come from data. Yeah. You’ve done a you know, you’ve announced a number of partnerships here in kind of a flurry to to open up the year. It seems like the demand is growing there. How do you see the data portion of your revenues kind of evolving over time?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: That’s a great question. Our belief is that at this stage of the market, data is most important to inform price discovery. So the relationship between people going to Yahoo Finance and saying what a share of OpenAI trade at and having that be actionable. Where you can actually buy it and you can buy it in the range of that price is really important for the expansion of the platform. In terms of the business model, the users of the data today are most, mostly asset managers because they’re using it for portfolio construction, and so you’re not yet seeing the kind of data consumption and revenue stream that you see in the major exchanges where Nasdaq and ICE are generating billions of dollars of annual revenue.

We think that will come, but between now and when that time comes, we think price discovery that moves people to the platform is the most important impact in establishing a leadership position as this market, as this market grows.

Patrick, Interviewer: I think one of the biggest, or the most striking data points to me when you think about private markets is that the turnover, the trading turnover is I think less than a quarter percent of annually, public markets is over a %. How do you think we move from, you know, a quarter percent to 1% to 2%, and what does that mean for the overall ecosystem and kind of, you know, forge its position in that Yeah. Evolving ecosystem?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: So this will tie back in some ways to the asset management part of our strategy. Today, the kind of turnover you’re seeing in the private market is almost exclusively driven by the need for secondary liquidity. And that’s a very reactive kind of market in that if you’re a company that’s staying private for fifteen years, you realize at some point around year seven or eight that your investors might want out or at least partially out and you’ve got employees that have spent eight or nine years of their career there who may need liquidity. So we started out serving that fundamental use case of liquidity for previous investors and for employees. What will make that change is when you see products come to market that are allowing a level of access where that capital is going onto the balance sheet of companies.

Where Forge is used, or a Forge fund is used to fund the balance sheet and the next five years of a private company’s investment in changing the world. When that happens, you’ll start to see the turnover get higher because the dollar amounts that will then flow through onto those balance sheets. Look, SpaceX already does this today. They are what the future will look like. They’re bringing in several billion dollars a year privately that’s going on their balance sheet and to provide liquidity.

They’ve got a market cap of about $300,000,000,000 in the private market. If you look at the top 200 names, those are the names that trade. But, you’re talking about a valuation range of 5,000,000,000 to 300,000,000,000. So, the market’s still pretty top heavy, but the key answer is balance sheet capital.

Patrick, Interviewer: I think this, it’s obviously a market or the private markets is getting a lot more attention, you’re sort of, you were the first to market and kind of the first pure play private markets, know, company out there that was investable. Nasdaq announced a partnership yesterday with Nasdaq Private Markets. What do think gives Forge the right to win here and and you know, maybe you could just speak to like the competitive landscape today and how you expect it to kind of evolve?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. So let me be really clear. Forge, while we were first and largest, we don’t take that for granted as a right to be the winner. We made some incredibly, I would say, bold decisions to invest in the creation of this next generation platform and the cash burn over the last three years as a public company has been difficult as a CEO to withstand the kind of scrutiny that goes with it. So our belief is the investment in a globally extensible, highly automated platform, and our investment in data, and now asset management puts us in a position to win, but we still need to execute because the TAM in this market is enormous once it starts to actually take hold.

So, when I see competitors out there following our playbook, it does not surprise me. I view it as, in some ways, a compliment that people see it and get it. I’d say Nasdaq private markets has been around for a long time and clearly their partnership with Nasdaq is going give them the benefit of being able to say, okay, we’re going to break a press release on data because Ford has been in the press like crazy in terms of all these data contracts. So we see that emerging and I think you’re going to see the winners have a pretty strong data play. But we’ve to continue to execute and our intention is to be a profitable public company soon and to take the investment that we’ve made and now start to harvest it.

Patrick, Interviewer: I think distribution is going to be a big factor in your growth, you know, going to brokerages possibly, and you mentioned the RIA channel and wealth managers. How do you feel about your distribution channel today, and what more can you be doing, or do you expect to do over the next several years to kind of help with distribution once you close the liquidity?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yes. Yes, thank you. This has been the message that I tried to get out in the last couple of earnings calls. One of the things that those of you who follow software and software that is meant to be distributed through extensible API distribution will understand that for Forge to get really big, we have to be able to not only build out a global application for those who want to trade and invest their portfolios, but the technology’s got to be extensible inside brokerages, inside wealth complexes and integrated into other apps. And in order for us to do that, the level of investment to make it extensible and secure so that it could live inside of a wealth complex and an asset manager or a wealth advisor can put a thousand of their clients with data into a set of investments required a level of technical investment that made us a reliable partner for large institutions.

So, distribution so far has been almost exclusively, you come to Forge, you go to forge.com, you open an account and we do business with about 6,000 institutions. About half of our business is through institutions who are buying on behalf of a client or on behalf of their portfolio. What you’re going to see next is Forge integrated more closely into the experiences of mainstream investing. You’re going to see private market exposure through your wealth advisor and integrate into other investment platforms. And that will change the game.

The same is true with asset management. When these funds come out, we’ll be announcing who’s distributing some of these funds. And I think you’ll all recognize the names because the companies that have been out in the press in the last six months, it be Vanguard, BlackRock, anybody, the largest players have said we’re moving into this private market space, and to do that at scale, they’re going to need a forge and all of the data and platform investment to pull it off at scale.

Patrick, Interviewer: And one of the companies that’s talked a lot about it has been Robinhood. Vlad has, you know, written op eds and talked about it on his earnings calls about wanting to democratize access to the private markets. Tokenization is a big a big thing that he likes to talk about when it comes to private markets. What do you think about tokenization in private markets? Is it necessary?

How do you kind of see that, you know, pushing the market forward?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. We’ve been following Robin Hood and Vlad’s message for a while and we’ve been following this opportunity for about a decade. I’ve got a couple people on my board who I would consider crypto native pioneers including Asaf Herji who was the President and COO of Coinbase. My view of it simply is this, tokenization essentially allows for you to fractionalize and thus make more accessible any asset class, whether that’s a fixed income asset class or a private share. Our view is not if, it’s when.

And today, we believe that we probably won’t reach a native crypto investor that’s incremental to the current TAM by moving to tokenize right now. But we think it’s coming and I’d say my view is that launching this 40 act fund to non accrediteds is one version of this democratization that Vlad’s talking about. The next version is going to be to tokenize it and when that happens we’ll be there. But we believe you need to have a network of investors and you need to have access to a broad piece of the market to make it valuable. And then the question is, does tokenization serve the interest of the issuer and the company themselves?

And to the extent that it offers friction reduction, again, into capital coming onto their balance sheet, then I’d say it would be broadly adopted by the market. But if you’re tokenizing just to sell secondary shares, I would say at this point in the market, there isn’t enough benefit for us to do it yet, but we’re looking at it. And so, I think Vlad’s audience at Robinhood is 25,000,000 investors that are pretty broad based retail investors. And they’re going to either get it through that means or they’re going to get it through a 40 act fund, and we think ultimately it will be both. So, we look to participate in that market at the right time.

Patrick, Interviewer: On the regulatory side of things, we talked a little bit about the SEC, There’s another, you know, regulatory, you know, story emerging with more relaxed regulation. We have the Texas Stock Exchange here. They’re, you know, the Texas is doing a lot of things to to try to appeal to corporates and make it more attractive to go public just given some of the the costs that, know, are placed on companies that are trying to go public, which I think has led to a lot of companies staying private for longer. Mhmm. And it’s obviously, you know, baked into your TAM and your expectations.

But how do you expect more relaxed regulation going forward to kind of affect that trend we’ve seen where corporates or privates are staying private for longer?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. You know, we’re we’re we’re on Capitol Hill every quarter talking to policy makers and I understand that part of what has happened is the regulatory requirements and the scrutiny and some of the short term mindset of being public has caused, broadly, companies to pull back and wait and not go public until they’re ready to withstand the scrutiny of it. So, I I I don’t think that’s gonna change. Now, I do believe that there are attempts to reduce some of the burden, but I believe that on platforms like Forge, and we won’t be the only one, if a company is able to raise primary capital to continue to fund the business and have an opportunity to also provide liquidity, The concept of being listed on Forge is a really interesting alternative. But for it to be a viable alternative, it’s got to allow companies to control and manage how balance sheet capital is priced and how secondary and liquidity in general is controlled.

I do think depending on, you know, whatever the policy makers who are in power are, they will uniformly say it’s better if companies go public at some point in time, and I think they’ve got to find some rational answer to making it easier. And I think there’s a lot of conversation going on right now on capital to do that, and we like that because we think democratization broadly is a good thing for the market. But I don’t think, I don’t think we’re going to see companies start to go public again at year five or seven of their existence. There’s just too much capital available to them that that that’s not required. So, I I think that that trend’s not going to go away.

Patrick, Interviewer: Shifting to the operational side of the business, you’ve set a goal to become adjusted EBITDA profitable by 2026. What are the steps that you’re taking right now to achieve that and how should we think about that, you know, your cash burn targets going forward?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. So I got three answers. I’ve got a brand new CFO, James Nevin, who’s here in the audience. He came in and really is sort of part of the next generation of Forge, Forge two point zero, and he understood the mandate coming in that we had made some big investments in ’21, ’20 ’2, ’20 ’3 and ’24. So we’re carrying a very significant engineering enterprise to pull this off.

And we had designed with it in mind that we would be profitable and breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis in 2026. And so this is part of his remit and my mandate. But I think everyone in this audience that’s listening should know that we understand that you also want to see a decreasing burn as we move towards that, and you will see that. But we have a belief that based on where the market currently is in scale that we’ll get there. And we would just like everyone’s trust, but we understand, you know, trust but verify.

But we’re we’re absolutely committed to it. The context for how we will invest is based on getting profitable in 2026. Make no mistake, that is an absolute priority for me and for the leadership team and for the board, because we recognize, we got public when we could raise a bunch of money and the market sort of said, hey, you know, show us that you can get profitable and we said we will. So, stay tuned.

Patrick, Interviewer: Alright. So, we’ll end on a on a big picture question. As we we talked a lot about just the evolution here, but if we look ahead ten years, is there any quantifiable predictions that you can make around the size of the private markets and Forge’s position in the ecosystem?

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Yeah. So, think we we have a pretty clear view now that what the private market needs to get really big is an automated platform that’s accessible from any place in the world to make this a globally accessible market with counterparties that can trade. And I believe that in ten years you will see the emergence, and probably two or three players in the world that provide that kind of access on a scaled global basis. I think you’re going to see tickers and data become ubiquitous. You’re seeing the emergence of that now, but just like you see a ticker across the bottom of CNBC, you’re going to see a ticker, and this is this is part of what the Yahoo and CNBC deals were for Forge, that show what what pricing looks like.

So price discovery will be evolved, and then I think you’re going to have a whole bunch of options. You can either buy single name stocks, look everyone’s watching the public mag seven and people are going to want to invest in the private mag seven, but they’re also going to want to invest in passive products that provide exposure. And so you’re going to see a market that’s much more mature and based on technological infrastructure that allows it to be a truly global market and cut across geographic boundaries. And it is our view that it is our job to provide that ecosystem as an enabling technology provider, but we don’t think it’s ten years away. We think it’s I think you really see big impact on this in about five.

Patrick, Interviewer: Yeah. Alright, well, it seems like a part of the market that’s really underappreciated, but Kelly, thanks so much for joining us, it’s been great.

Kelly Rodriguez, CEO, Forge Global: Thank you Patrick, thanks for having me. Thank you guys.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.