The infrastructure moving securities in public markets was built for a different era. Vinyl Equity is changing that.
We are thrilled to announce a $20M Series A led by Jump Capital with strategic participation from Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, along with continued support from our current investors, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Infinity Ventures, and Cambrian Fintech.
We built Vinyl Equity because the way securities flow in our public markets was built for the dot-com era. We're well into the AI revolution, and yet, capital markets infrastructure is still stuck in systems built in 1995. That gap between the modernity of companies going public and the antiquity of the infrastructure that takes them there is the problem we exist to solve.
The IPO tech stack was built for 1995
When a company prepares to go public, it assembles a best-in-class team. A well-known investment bank. The top-tier law firm. Months of diligence, roadshows, and back-and-forth with the SEC. Every task is executed at the highest level and with partners who know what great looks like.
But when it comes time to transfer the shares – the ownership – of the company, the bar suddenly drops. What's acceptable becomes what's available. The shareholder ledger, deeper, murkier, and more complex than ever before, gets handed over to vendors that haven't meaningfully innovated in decades.
At the single most consequential moment in a company's trajectory, the most critical plumbing is the oldest in the building.
And shares don't stop moving the moment the bell rings. From the first day of trading, ownership is in constant motion – retail investors, institutions, employees exercising options, secondary transactions. Every one of those movements runs through your transfer agent. Every error, every delay, every system failure carries financial and legal exposure. The wrong transfer agent partner creates liability at the precise moment your company is most visible and most scrutinized.
The modern capital markets expert
Vinyl is your deep expert guide for the next-gen IPO. We're active participants in helping companies navigate the most demanding terrain of their financial lives.
Our core product today is a transfer agent and payments agent built from first principles. We're SOC2 certified, with native tokenization capabilities that position our clients for the next generation of capital markets. We designed it to handle the complexity of today's shareholder ledger and the infrastructure demands of tomorrow's market, including what an AI-enabled trading environment will require from the systems beneath it.
Most companies are completely unprepared for what comes after the IPO. The aftermath is underestimated, under-resourced, and often handled with the same legacy mindset as everything that came before it. When share movement never stops, and market scrutiny never sleeps, the cost of bad technology shows up in reconciliation failures, shareholder disputes, regulatory exposure, and jaw-dropping legal fees.
We're here to change that.
Proof from the field: modern infrastructure for modern IPOs
Companies preparing to go public face the same decision: accept the incumbent transfer agent as a given, or demand something better.
Vinyl works alongside issuers, counsel, and banking partners during some of the most operationally demanding moments in the IPO process. Our platform is built to handle the complexity and scrutiny that comes with taking a company public.
On listing day, there is no room for operational failure. Shareholder records need to be accurate and responsive. Payments need to be processed correctly. Infrastructure needs to perform under pressure.
That’s the bar we are helping our customers meet as they enter the public markets and continue to operate inside them.
Putting our fresh funding to work
The $20M we raised is fuel for three big items:
- Building the partnerships and infrastructure that make it easier for companies and shareholders to operate in the public markets.
- Continuing to build the team that operates at the speed and scale that public markets demand.
- Evolving the new standard.
Vinyl Equity is actively operating in the modern markets. We've put our vision to the test and are powering real public companies with more secure technology.
We are grateful to our investors and earliest customers for their continuous support and belief in our vision. The year ahead is bright for Vinyl Equity, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.