I honestly can't figure out how they are making enough money to stay in business. I have to assume that by getting a seat at the big boy RegNMS table, they are getting a share of the fees paid to the SIP. But even with that, seems like a tough way to get by.
But LSTE has so little volume, that you frankly forget they exist most of the time.
As a customer I need to figure out whether I want to opt in, by January 31st at the latest.
Luckily, there is an Astrella demo webinar every week ! (And the next one is... on January 31st in the evening).
I would call this a short deadline.
It seems like there's a gap to be filled between the recent Carta issues and now this.
You never had shares “there.” You have shares. They recorded that fact.
Contrast this with buying Apple stock through Fidelity. Legally, Fidelity owns the stock [1]. (Well, technically probably not [2].) You properly own your stock “through” Fidelity.
Private cap tables are different. The cap table is what the investors and company say it is. To avoid mistakes and have an independent record for disputes, many companies opt to use a third party for administration. But the shares they track aren’t “there.” The cap table manager can go under with zero implication for the value or propriety of your shares. (Not necessarily true for Fidelity.)
As a practical matter, keep an eye out for an update from your company. As long as they have a proper notice address for you, you shouldn’t be subject to anything explosive.
That is to say, none of what you said is wrong but it’s not peculiar to private shares. Public shares are directly analogous.
Fidelity isn’t a great example as it’s likely too big to fail, but even if they did go under it would mean systematic collapse of the western equities markets. That said philosophically Fidelity failing _doesnt_ impact your legal claims precisely because Cede & DTC exist.
it's also noteworthy that their chairman/founder Eric Reis is now also cofounder of Answer.ai, so perhaps his personal focus is shifting a bit? idk, probably reading too much into a chairman's activities vs company focus.
