Interview with David Tollemache, Co-Founder of Techdollar
What problem was Techdollar founded to solve, and what was the gap you saw in the market?
Companies are choosing to stay private longer, reaching public market maturity before they IPO, which is 13 years on average. As a result, the people who are building and investing in these companies are sitting on significant equity value which they can’t touch, often for over a decade.
For instance, an engineer at a late-stage company with a large amount of vested stock, has very limited options: sell into a secondary at a discount, crystallise a tax event and forever lose out on the company’s future upside.
Or borrow against the equity.
However, traditional banks won’t underwrite the asset class and specialist lenders have a minimum threshold, so borrowing is reserved for the ultra wealthy.
The gap we are serving is the early employee and early stage investor.
While banks treat this asset class like its speculative venture, we treat it as foundational to the next economic cycle.
We started Techdollar because there was no plain lending product for that person: a loan against the equity, repeatable at scale, at a rate that makes sense, that doesn’t require giving up the upside.
How would you describe Techdollar’s role as “the credit layer for private markets” in practical terms?
Private markets have significant equity plumbing in place with cap tables on Carta, secondaries via Caplight and company run tender offers.
They don’t have credit plumbing and there’s no standard way to pledge private shares, price them for a loan, monitor them and enforce if it goes wrong; every deal is bespoke.
We’re making that a standard, repeatable process. A company agrees once how its shares can be pledged, and from then on any shareholder can borrow against them without a fresh negotiation.
Walk us through how the platform works. How does someone go from holding illiquid equity to accessing a loan against it?
It’s a very simple process; a shareholder gets started at Techdollar, submits proof of ownership, completes KYC and can immediately view the amount available to unlock against their equity.
In the background, we start our due diligence process, alongside our partner, RSM.
From there, the borrower is presented with a term sheet and, on signing, the account can be immediately funded.
The whole process can take as little as 24-48 hours.
What makes Techdollar’s approach different from other ways employees or founders might access liquidity today?
Currently, liquidity primarily comes through company run tenders or secondary sales. Tenders are a great tool, but they are infrequent and capped. Secondaries are expensive. Both require you to sell.
So you give up future upside and crystalise a tax event in one transaction.
Techdollar is a loan, not a sale. You keep every share and all the upside. It’s underwritten on the collateral, not the borrower, so there are no tax returns or credit checks.
How does Techdollar fund loans in 24–48 hours, and what makes that speed possible?
Speed comes from the Techdollar team’s ability to build products that scale and put in the work to enable that, before facilitating our first loan.
How does Techdollar verify ownership and use real-time secondary market data to underwrite a loan?
We’re partnered with RSM (Top 10 CPA) who verify ownership and Caplight for secondary market data. This gives us a real view of the market,
What sectors or company types is Techdollar currently most active in, and why?
Frontier technology: AI, robotics, aerospace, defence, compute, plus the large fintechs. Traditional private credit misprices these companies because it treats them like software businesses with a coupon, when the ones we back have hard assets, contracted revenue or dominant positions. They’re also where employees hold the most equity with the least access to it.
What has customer or borrower feedback told you about what people value most in the product?
My favourite part of the job is speaking to our borrowers. The product itself does the selling for us and I often find the people I speak to have been searching for our product for some time. One client even presented me with a pitch deck on himself and why he should be a customer.
What we hear the most is relief that someone is finally building this. Then the specifics; they keep their shares, it feels fair for a secured loan and its fast. Nobody’s asking to sell something they believe in, just to get liquidity.
Who is Techdollar built for which users or company profiles get the most value from the platform?
Employees, founders and early investors in late stage growth companies.
How do you see Techdollar fitting into the broader private-markets ecosystem as it matures?
Tenders and secondaries help you sell, Techdollar is the option for people that don’t want to. As private companies stay private longer, that gap only grows.
What’s next on the roadmap for Techdollar new asset classes, sectors, or capabilities?
More companies, more geographies, faster verification. And for the first time ever, a credit card for your private equity wealth.
What would success look like for Techdollar, and for private-market liquidity generally, five years from now?
Borrowing against private company shares is as normal as a mortgage against a house and Techdollar is the company known for driving that change.
Disclaimer:
“Techdollar’s borrower loans are dollar-denominated and secured against private company shares. On the funding side, the company partners with institutional capital providers including family offices and sovereign wealth funds, and is exploring use of a dollar-backed stablecoin as settlement infrastructure between funders and the platform, pending SEC guidance.”
Published in Partnership with Techdollar
