Through Q1 2025, secondary market prices for top private companies have diverged sharply from their last primary round prices. Reading this gap correctly is one of the most informative signals available to a private-company employee.
When secondary > primary
OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Cursor all trade at or above their most recent primary on Hiive and Forge. This is an unusual signal: it implies that secondary investors (who lack the strategic / governance rights of primary investors) are willing to pay full price.
Two possible interpretations: (1) the next primary will price higher, and secondary investors are getting ahead of it; (2) primary supply is constrained, so secondary becomes the only way to buy in.
When secondary > primary by 10–30%
Stripe, Databricks: secondary clears at $87B and $73B respectively, above their 2023/2024 primaries. This is consistent with the IPO base case. If an IPO occurs at $100B+ or $80B+, secondary investors capture a small return; if it doesn't, they're stuck at the secondary price for years.
When secondary < primary
Several unicorns we don't cover here are trading 20–50% below their last primary. This is recap risk: the next primary is likely to be a down round, diluting existing employees substantially. If your company is in this bucket, model down-round scenarios in the calculator before assuming the primary valuation is real.
Rule of thumb: if your company's secondary clears within 10% of primary, your paper value is roughly real. If it's 30%+ below, treat the official valuation as aspirational.