Ever since we started 9fin, we've believed that if you help build the company, you should share in the value you create. Equity shouldn't only matter at some distant endpoint - it should mean something along the journey, too.
That's why, as part of our recent $170 million Series C at a $1.3 billion valuation, we gave 9finners the opportunity to sell a portion of their vested shares.
For many people working at startups, equity can become valuable on paper long before there's any opportunity to realise that value. Employee secondaries help bridge that gap, giving people the choice to access some liquidity while continuing to own shares and build the business for the long term.
They're still relatively uncommon — only around 1% of companies offered an employee secondary in 2025, according to Optio Incentives — but this is something we've wanted to do for a long time. With our latest funding round significantly oversubscribed, we were determined to make it happen.
Just as importantly, we wanted the process to be straightforward. Participation was entirely optional, and every employee made the decision that was right for them. We covered the administrative costs and made independent financial advice available, so people could make informed choices without having to bear those costs themselves.
Being able to offer an employee secondary is also a reflection of how far 9fin has come. We've consistently doubled revenue year on year and grown even faster in the US. Today, more than 350 of the world's leading financial institutions rely on 9fin to power critical credit decisions. Since our Series C, we've continued to launch AI-powered tools that help clients complete complex credit research in a fraction of the time, built on nearly a decade of proprietary data and workflow expertise.
We're incredibly proud of what the team has built together - but we also believe we're still in the early chapters of the story.
As we often say at 9fin, it's a marathon, not a sprint - even if it sometimes feels like a marathon run at sprint pace. Every marathon has water stops along the way. This secondary was one of them: an opportunity for the people who've helped build 9fin to realise some of the value they've created, take a breath, and keep running with us.
To every 9finner: thank you. Everything we've achieved is the result of your talent, ambition and hard work, and we're excited about what we'll build together next.
And if reading this makes you want to be part of the journey - we're hiring.
