Forge Global Review: Pre-IPO Access at $100k and What It Really Costs

What Forge is, legally: a broker, an investment adviser, a custodian and a data vendor under one roof, all four owned by Schwab since March 2026.

The entities

The operating company is Forge Global, Inc., San Francisco, founded in 2014 as Equidate by Sohail Prasad and Samvit Ramadurgam, who met in Y Combinator’s summer 2012 batch (TechCrunch, June 22, 2021). It rebranded to Forge in 2018, the year the founders hired Kelly Rodriques as chief executive; he ran it through the acquisition. In May 2020 Forge agreed to buy its older rival SharesPost for $160M in cash and stock, closing that November (TechCrunch, May 12, 2020). SharesPost matters for the regulatory history: in March 2012 the SEC charged it with acting as an unregistered broker in pre-IPO shares, and SharesPost and its chief executive paid $80,000 and $20,000, after which it bought a broker-dealer and joined FINRA (SEC press release 2012-43, March 14, 2012).

Three registered subsidiaries do the work the customer sees:

• Forge Securities LLC, the broker-dealer, FINRA CRD 134596, a SIPC member. Every trade is brokered by this entity and every commission is paid to it (Form CRS; BrokerCheck).
• Forge Global Advisors LLC, the SEC-registered adviser, CRD 284722, registered since 2019, which manages the funds through which smaller tickets get access. Its Form ADV, filed April 6, 2026, reports $2.46B of regulatory assets under management at December 31, 2025, all discretionary (SEC IAPD).
• Forge Trust Co., a South Dakota-chartered non-depository trust company, formerly IRA Services Trust, which custodies self-directed IRAs holding alternative assets. At December 31, 2024 it held about $16.9B of assets in about 2.4M accounts (Forge 10-K FY2024, filed March 6, 2025), and it is why custodial fees were more than half of Forge’s 2024 revenue.

Two more pieces round out the group: Forge Europe GmbH, a Berlin joint venture with Deutsche Börse launched in October 2022 whose marketplace went live on April 25, 2024, and Accuidity Capital Management, an index-fund manager bought on July 1, 2025 for $10M in cash plus 1.15M Forge shares, on about $5.7M of revenue in the year to May 31, 2025 (Business Wire, July 2, 2025).

The owners: from SPAC to Schwab

Forge went public in March 2022 by merging with Motive Capital Corp, a SPAC, at a pro forma valuation of about $2.0B (Business Wire, September 13, 2021). What followed was a three-year slide. On December 31, 2024 the NYSE notified Forge that its average closing price had fallen below $1.00 over 30 trading days. Shareholders approved a reverse split on March 27, 2025, the board chose 1-for-15, it took effect for trading on April 15, 2025, and the NYSE confirmed compliance on May 1, 2025 (Business Wire, January 3 and May 2, 2025; Forge 8-K, April 14, 2025).

Schwab signed a definitive agreement on November 5, 2025 and announced it the next morning: every Forge share for $45.00 in cash, about $660M, a premium of roughly 72% to the prior close (Schwab press release, November 6, 2025; CNBC, November 6, 2025). Forge’s two largest holders, Motive Capital and Deutsche Börse, signed support agreements. Stockholders voted on January 22, 2026, the merger closed on March 2, 2026, and the NYSE filed to remove the stock on March 13, 2026, after which a Form 15 ended Forge’s SEC reporting (Forge 8-K, March 2, 2026; Forms 25-NSE and 15-12G, March 2026).

We found no record of a Schwab stake in Forge before the deal; “Schwab-affiliated” in 2026 coverage means “Schwab-owned since March 2, 2026”. Schwab’s stated plan, in order: Forge products for select ultra-high-net-worth clients, then more than 1 million retail clients and RIAs, then all qualified investors, with ’40 Act funds to widen access (Schwab investor presentation, November 6, 2025). On Schwab’s second-quarter call on July 21, 2026, management called Forge “not material” to 2026 results, worth about 100 basis points of both revenue and expense growth. Schwab reports 46M client accounts and $11.6T of client assets, which is the distribution Forge never had (Schwab press release, November 6, 2025).

How big it is

Every volume figure here is Forge’s own and unaudited except where it comes from a 10-K. Lifetime, to December 31, 2025: more than $17B in private shares transacted since 2014, and, on Forge’s own count, more than 27,000 transactions in more than 650 companies with more than 850,000 registered buyers and sellers (Schwab press release, March 2, 2026). Annual: $1.325B in 2024 across 2,762 trades, up 73% on 2023 (Forge 10-K FY2024). Quarterly, the last four periods Forge reported as a public company: $298.5M in Q4 2024, $692.5M in Q1 2025, $756.1M in Q2 2025 and about $420M in Q3 2025 (Forge earnings releases, March 5, May 7 and July 30, 2025; Q3 2025 unverified at publication).

The money was never the problem the volume solved. Revenue less transaction-based expenses was $78.7M in 2024, up 13%: marketplace revenue $37.0M, up 46%, and custodial fees from Forge Trust $41.7M, down 5%. The net loss was $67.8M after $91.5M in 2023, and the accumulated deficit reached $347.0M (Forge earnings release, March 5, 2025; 10-K FY2024). The merger proxy shows what management told the board it could do alone: net revenue of $104.4M in 2025 rising to $214.8M in 2028, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive at $5.1M in 2026 (Forge DEFM14A, December 15, 2025, Base Case Projections). Schwab bought the company before that turn had to happen.

A Forge trade is a negotiated, brokered transfer of restricted stock, not an exchange order. Here is the money from sign-up to exit, and who is paid at each step.

Eligibility and onboarding

You need to be an accredited investor under SEC Rule 501: income above $200,000 (or $300,000 with a spouse) in each of the last two years, or net worth above $1M excluding your home (Forge FAQ). Creating an account is free. Forge runs know-your-customer checks and asks you to document accreditation with tax returns or W-2s, statements, or a letter from a CPA, attorney, broker-dealer or registered adviser, which the industry treats as valid for 90 days. Forge does not publish how long verification takes; plan for days, not hours, and refresh a third-party letter if a trade slips past 90 days.

Sourcing and pricing

Forge’s marketplace is a book of indications of interest, or IOIs: non-binding statements from would-be buyers and sellers, with a size and a price. At December 31, 2024 there were 535 companies with live IOIs (Forge 10-K FY2024); in 2024 buy-side IOIs were 55.2% of activity and the median bid-ask spread hit a low of 6.4% in Q2 (Forge Private Market Update, 2024). You browse companies, see Forge Price where one exists, submit an IOI, and a Forge private market specialist, a registered representative of Forge Securities, calls to negotiate a match. The executable price is what a counterparty accepts; Forge Price is a model.

What you own

In a direct secondary you buy the seller’s shares, usually common or preferred stock held by an ex-employee or early investor, under a stock transfer agreement. They are restricted securities: the company’s bylaws almost always carry a right of first refusal (ROFR), which lets the company or its designated investors buy the shares at your agreed price instead of you, plus a transfer-approval requirement. In a Forge Fund you buy units of a series of Forge Investments LLC, a Delaware series LLC managed by Forge Global Advisors, which holds the shares; you own a fund interest, not stock, and you receive a Schedule K-1. Forge Funds are how Forge takes a $5,000 or $25,000 ticket, and they carry their own fee stack.

Closing

Once terms are agreed, Forge submits the transfer to the company. The board typically has 30 to 45 business days to exercise or waive its ROFR, six to nine weeks rather than four to six; the transfer agreement is executed after that and funds move to the seller (Forge, Guide to Buy Private Shares). Forge’s own figures: 42 days on average from IOI match to close in 2023 (10-K FY2023), and 45 to 60 calendar days or more once matched. Your funds sit with Forge until closing; if the company exercises its ROFR, the trade is cancelled and you pay nothing. If the transfer clears, the shares go on the company’s cap table in your name and Forge’s role ends until you sell.

How Forge is paid at each step

Nothing at sign-up, nothing to browse. At closing, Forge Securities takes a commission from the buyer, the seller or both, disclosed before you agree terms. On a Forge Fund, Forge Global Advisors takes a set-up fee, a management fee and carried interest, with Forge Securities typically the placement agent for a further fee (Form ADV Part 2A, 2026). In a self-directed IRA, Forge Trust takes quarterly account and asset fees. Forge also sells data, and does not publish what it charges for it.

The menu as of September 17, 2026, with minimums and structures. Forge’s list changes with which names have sellers, so what follows is the shape of the thing, not a catalogue.

Direct secondaries

The core product: a brokered purchase of shares in a single private company. Minimum $100,000, “especially when investing in companies that are in high demand”, with some deals between $25,000 and $100,000 (Forge FAQ, retrieved September 2026). No target return is stated; Forge sells access, not a return. On its own tally the most-bid names of 2025 were SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, then the rest of what it brands the Private Magnificent 7: Anduril, Databricks, Stripe and xAI (Business Wire, September 19, 2025). Forge said 44% of its 2025 trades involved AI companies (Forge, How AI Redefined 2025).

Forge Funds

Single-issuer funds that hold one company’s shares and multi-issuer funds that hold several, each a series of Forge Investments LLC managed by Forge Global Advisors. Indications of interest from $5,000 on certain offerings, “limited and subject to the terms of the specific offering” (Forge FAQ). The rate for a given fund is only in that fund’s offering documents.

The Megacorn Fund

Accuidity’s index strategy became a registered product: the Megacorn Fund, a non-diversified closed-end interval fund that expects to hold at least 75% of its equity investments in the companies and SPVs making up the Forge Accuidity Private Market Index, itself 60 US late-stage venture-backed companies valued at $500M or more (Megacorn Fund Forms N-2 and N-2/A, 2025 to 2026). It is the product Schwab most plausibly puts in front of a client with $50,000 rather than $500,000. Its fee table and minimum were not readable in the filings we could reach at publication, so we do not quote them; read the prospectus before a Schwab representative summarises it for you.

Data products

Forge Price, a daily derived price for roughly 200 to 250 late-stage companies built from secondary trades, funding rounds and IOIs (Forge press release, September 26, 2024), carries the Forge Private Market Index (equal-weighted, launched April 2024) and the cap-weighted Forge Accuidity Private Market Index; Forge Pro is the institutional screen. For a retail buyer the useful part is free. The part that would matter, live bids and asks, is what the specialist tells you on the phone.

Closed or changed

SpaceX, the name that drew more bids than any other on Forge in 2025, listed on Nasdaq as SPCX on June 12, 2026 at $135 a share after a 5-for-1 split completed in May, raised $75B and closed its first day at $160.95; Forge, Hiive and EquityZen closed their listings (CNBC, June 12, 2026; Bloomberg, May 16, 2026). Forge’s role as Liquidating Trustee for Linqto’s customers, announced January 13, 2026, was abandoned that July 15.

Every fee a Forge customer can pay, then one worked example in dollars. The headline is simple, 2% to 5% when a trade closes; the stack underneath is not, because the same shares can be sold to you three ways with three different fee schedules.

The direct-trade commission

Forge Securities’ Form CRS states brokerage fees of 2% to 5% of transaction value, success-based, with no charge if a trade does not close. Forge’s fee page narrows it: for direct secondaries the fee is “typically between 2-4%”, “as low as 0% in some instances”, set by transaction size, market dynamics, investment type and the customer’s lifetime volume, with seller fees at roughly 2% to 4% (Forge Fees Explained, retrieved September 2026). Two things the fee page leaves out and the Form CRS states plainly: you may pay a higher commission if your trade is smaller than Forge’s $100,000 minimum, and you may pay issuer-imposed costs on top, “such as legal opinions, transfer fees, or escrow”. The honest summary: expect 2% to 4% as a buyer of a hot name, the seller to be paying something similar, and the spread between the two prices to be Forge’s third source of margin.

Forge does not publish the spread. Its reported net take rate, marketplace revenue as a share of volume, is the closest public measure of what buyers and sellers together paid: 3.3% in 2023, 2.8% in 2024, 2.3% in Q1 2025, 2.4% in Q2 2025 and 2.8% in Q3 2025 (Forge earnings releases; Q3 2025 unverified at publication). Large institutional blocks pull that average down; a retail buyer of $100,000 of a Magnificent 7 name sits at the top of the range.

The Forge Fund stack

Forge Global Advisors’ Form ADV Part 2A gives ranges, not rates. Single-issuer funds: 1% to 5% set-up fee, 1% to 5% management fee, 10% to 20% carried interest, 1% to 2% redemption fee. Multi-issuer funds: 0% to 5% management plus carry up to 20%. Investors are typically required to engage Forge Securities to close the purchase at 0% to 5% of the subscription, with no offset against the advisory fee (Form ADV Part 2A, 2026). Whether “management fee” means per year or once for the life of the vehicle is set fund by fund; in the single-company SPV market it is often charged once, up front, for the expected life. Read the private placement memorandum’s fee table before you sign, and ask the specialist to state in writing the total fees as a percentage of your subscription over the fund’s expected life.

The fees the fee page omits

• Forge Trust custody: quarterly account maintenance and asset-based fees based on the complexity and number of assets held, plus per-transaction fees, if you hold in a self-directed IRA there (Forge 10-K FY2024). Customers on BBB and Trustpilot report a $175 termination fee and fee increases after opening (unverified customer report, September 2026).
• Issuer costs: legal opinions, transfer fees and escrow, set by the company rather than by Forge and disclosed in the transfer paperwork (Form CRS).
• Wires: Forge publishes no wire fee; your bank’s outgoing wire fee applies, typically $15 to $35.
• The exit commission: to sell, you pay the seller-side commission, 2% to 5%.
• Time: your funds sit with Forge for 45 to 60 days; at a 4% money-market yield, $100,000 idle for 50 days forgoes about $550.

Worked example: $100,000 of one company, held three years

The assumptions: you buy $100,000 of a late-stage company’s shares on Forge; Forge charges 3%, the midpoint of its typical 2% to 4% range; the shares appreciate 15% a year, an assumption, not a Forge figure; you are in the top federal bracket, so long-term gains are taxed at 20% plus the 3.8% net investment income tax under IRC Section 1411. The same $100,000 goes into the Invesco QQQ ETF at a 0.20% expense ratio at the same assumed 15%.

Route A, direct trade, exit through an IPO. Outlay: $100,000 of shares plus $3,000 commission, $103,000. Value after three years at 15%: $100,000 × 1.15³ = $152,088. Sold on an exchange after the lock-up, no Forge fee. Gain: $152,088 − $103,000 = $49,088. Tax at 23.8%: $11,683. Net after tax: $140,405, 10.9% a year on the $103,000 and 13.9% before tax. The 3% entry fee cost about 1.1 percentage points a year.

Route B, direct trade, exit by selling on Forge. Same entry, then a 4% seller commission at exit: $6,084. Proceeds: $146,004. Gain: $43,004. Tax: $10,235. Net after tax: $135,769, 12.3% a year before tax. The 7% round trip cost about 2.7 points a year.

Route C, a Forge single-issuer fund. Take the low end of every range: 2% set-up ($2,000), 1% placement to Forge Securities ($1,000), a 1% management fee prepaid for three years ($3,000) and 10% carry. Outlay: $106,000. Gross value: $152,088. Carry: 10% × ($152,088 − $100,000) = $5,209. Value to you: $146,879, before any 1% to 2% redemption fee, or 11.5% a year before tax. At the top of the ranges (5% set-up, 5% a year, 20% carry, 5% placement) the same trade returns roughly 4% a year before tax: $125,000 out, $141,670 back after carry.

Route D, Invesco QQQ. $100,000 at 15% less 0.20% a year: $100,000 × 1.148³ = $151,295, no commission. Gain: $51,295. Tax: $12,208. Net after tax: $139,087, 14.8% a year before tax.

The point is not that QQQ wins: the 15% assumption is identical on every row, and the real question is whether the private company beats the index. The point is what Forge’s stack costs at each layer, about 1 point a year for the entry commission, about 3 points for a round trip, and 3.5 to 11 points for the fund wrapper. The private company has to beat the Nasdaq-100 by that margin, every year, just to tie.

Forge is a marketplace, so it publishes no customer IRR, no fund-level returns and no aggregate realised gain. What it publishes is an index of its own marks. Every figure below that is not an IPO price is unrealised.

What Forge claims

The Forge Private Market Index, equal-weighted and rebuilt on Forge Price, posted a claimed 75.6% trailing twelve-month return at September 30, 2025 (Forge Private Market Index page, 2026). Its January 2026 rebalance added 13 companies and removed 10. For Q2 2026 it reported the equal-weighted index up 11.7% and the cap-weighted Forge Accuidity index up 12.6% (Forge, July IPO Pipeline Outlook, July 2026). Next to the public market that is the quarter’s real lesson: the S&P 500 rose 15.2% and the Nasdaq-100 28% over the same three months, so Forge’s marks, illiquid and untradeable, lagged the index you can buy at 0.20% a year (Nasdaq, July 2026 Review and Outlook).

Three things about those claims. An index of Forge Prices is an index of a model: Forge’s own disclaimer says Forge Price may rely on a very limited number of inputs and is not executable. Companies leave the index when their liquidity dries up, which is also when their marks fall, and the January 2026 rebalance removed 10. And the constituents are equal-weighted, so a 2025 in which 44% of trades involved AI companies produces a return no diversified buyer of $100,000 lots could have captured.

What has been realised

Realised outcomes come from IPOs and acquisitions of names that traded on Forge. The clean win is SpaceX. A buyer at the April 15, 2026 Forge Price of $604.39 who paid a 3% commission had a cost of $622.52 per pre-split share. The IPO on June 12, 2026 priced at $135 after a 5-for-1 split, $675 pre-split, and the stock closed its first day at $160.95, $804.75 pre-split, up 19.2% (CNBC, June 12, 2026). On paper that is +8.4% at the IPO price and +29.3% at the first close, in two months. But pre-IPO holders sit inside a lock-up, typically 180 days, so nobody who bought on Forge in April could sell on June 12; the realised figure will be the December 2026 price, and until then it is a mark.

The 2025 IPO class is the caution. Figma rose 250% on its listing day and by December 2025 was at $73, down 33% from the IPO price; Klarna priced at $40 in September 2025 and fell 26% below it; by December 29, 2025, 14 of the 20 largest 2025 IPOs traded below their IPO price (Wolf Street, December 29, 2025). For a Forge buyer the IPO is not the exit. The end of the lock-up is, and the lock-up is where the 2025 class gave back the pop.

The systematic evidence on price is Forge’s own. In July 2023 it reported private companies trading at a median 58% discount to their last primary round (Forge Private Market Update, August 2023; Crowdfund Insider). By September 30, 2025 the 90th percentile trade was at a 94% premium (Forge Private Market Update, 2025). Two years apart, the same marketplace delivered marks half the last round and marks double it. That range is the distribution a Forge buyer is exposed to, and the commission is the same in both regimes.

The gap and why

Forge’s claimed numbers are index marks built from thin trades in the names it is best at selling. The realised numbers are IPO prices six months away from a lock-up expiry, on a handful of companies, and 2025’s were mostly below the IPO price by year-end. The gap exists because the index is rebalanced toward liquidity, because Forge Price can sit more than 10% below another venue’s estimate (Databricks: $196.31 against Hiive’s $218.88 on May 20, 2026), and because you buy at an ask that already prices the last tender. None of that makes Forge wrong about the direction of late-stage private marks. It makes the claimed 75.6% a description of a year, not a return you can buy.

How you get out, how long it takes, and what happens to your shares if Forge, or Schwab’s appetite for Forge, goes away.

There is no redemption

A direct holding has no redemption right. You exit by (1) an IPO or direct listing followed by the lock-up, (2) an acquisition for cash or stock, (3) a company-run tender offer, in which the company or its investors buy back shares at a set price, usually from employees first, or (4) another brokered secondary sale, on Forge or a rival, at whatever bid exists. Forge Fund units are worse: an LLC interest with no market, redemption at the manager’s discretion and a 1% to 2% fee (Form ADV Part 2A, 2026), and distributions only when the underlying shares are sold.

The secondary sale, in numbers

Selling is buying in reverse: you post an IOI, Forge finds a bidder, the company gets 30 to 45 business days for its ROFR, and closing runs 45 to 60 days from match (Forge, Guide to Sell Private Shares). Forge’s median bid-ask spread was 6.4% at its narrowest in Q2 2024; the seller commission is 2% to 5%. Forge’s own reported ROFR exercise rate bottomed near 5% to 8% in 2022 and 2023 (Forge, Understanding Liquidity Timelines); industry estimates run 10% to 20%. A ROFR exercise costs you the buyer, not money: the company pays the price you negotiated. One trade in five to twenty settles with a different counterparty on the same terms, and some companies simply refuse the transfer.

Time to exit, then: for a company that lists, the wait for the IPO plus 180 days, and Forge’s most-bid names of 2025 had waited 10 to 24 years to list, or have not. For a secondary sale, 45 to 60 days if there is a bid at your price, and there may not be. Mid-2023, when the median trade was 58% below the last round, is what “no bid at your price” looks like in the data.

If Forge fails

The shares in a direct trade are yours, recorded on the company’s cap table; Forge’s failure would not touch them. Cash in transit sits at Forge Securities, a SIPC member, and SIPC covers $500,000 of securities and cash per customer if a broker fails with customer assets missing; it does not cover the shares falling in value. A failed fund manager would be replaced, not liquidated, under the LLC agreement, though the timing would be out of your hands. The scenario that matters more after March 2026 is not Forge’s insolvency, which Schwab’s balance sheet has removed, but Schwab’s discretion: on July 15, 2026 Forge walked away from a court-approved trustee role five days before it started, citing regulatory and compliance concerns and, the debtor says, Schwab’s instructions (Bloomberg Law, July 2026). A parent that can pull Forge out of a bankruptcy plan can narrow what Forge will broker.

The forms you receive, the character of the income, and the traps specific to secondary private stock. The Code sections below are the ones that bite.

Direct shares

You hold stock. There is no income until you sell, no dividends in practice from a venture-backed company, and no 1099 while you hold. When you sell, the executing broker reports the proceeds on Form 1099-B, your public broker after an IPO or Forge Securities on a resale. Gain is capital gain: short-term at ordinary rates if held one year or less, long-term at 0%, 15% or 20% under IRC Section 1(h) if held more than a year, plus the 3.8% net investment income tax under Section 1411 above $200,000 of modified AGI ($250,000 joint). Your basis is the price plus the commission you paid Forge; the exit commission reduces proceeds. Keep the stock transfer agreement; the company’s transfer agent will not track your basis.

The QSBS trap

Section 1202 excludes up to 100% of gain on qualified small business stock, and founders and early employees of Forge’s names often hold it. You will not. Section 1202(c)(1)(B) requires that the stock be acquired at original issuance from the corporation; stock bought from another shareholder, on Forge or anywhere else, is not QSBS in the buyer’s hands (Holland & Knight, July 2025; The Tax Adviser, June 2021). A seller pitching you QSBS shares is describing his tax position, not yours.

Forge Funds

A series of Forge Investments LLC is a partnership for tax purposes. You receive a Schedule K-1, typically late, often after April 15, and you report your share of the fund’s gain when the fund sells, at the fund’s holding period, not yours. Since 2018 the management fee is generally a non-deductible investment expense for individuals under Section 67(g). A fund holding shares in more than one state can in principle generate state filing obligations; for plain equity in a Delaware C corporation it usually does not.

IRAs and losses

Forge Trust exists to hold these assets in a self-directed IRA. Equity in a C corporation generates no unrelated business taxable income under Section 512, so a Forge trade in an IRA is clean on UBTI; the constraints are the custodian’s fees, the prohibited-transaction rules of Section 4975 (you cannot buy from or sell to yourself or your family), and valuation, since Forge Trust must report a fair market value on Form 5498 each year and will use Forge Price or a similar mark. The 28% collectibles rate does not apply; these are securities. A company that fails gives you a capital loss under Section 165(g) in the year the stock becomes worthless, a fact question you have to document; a fund’s loss flows through the K-1. Capital losses offset capital gains plus $3,000 of ordinary income a year under Section 1211.

The risk that ends the investor first, then the dated record. Nothing here is an enforcement action against Forge for harming a customer; most of it is the ordinary wreckage of a public company, and two 2026 items show how a Schwab-owned Forge behaves when a regulator might be watching.

The risk that ends the investor

It is not fraud at Forge. It is buying restricted stock in a company whose financials you have not seen, at a price set by the last tender, from a seller who knows more than you, with no exit for years. Forge’s specialists are paid on closed trades; the Form CRS calls it “an economic incentive to encourage securities transactions”. Valuation risk is the whole trade, and the July 2023 median, a 58% discount to the last round, is what it looks like realised.

Regulatory record

• SharesPost, March 2012: the SEC charged SharesPost with unregistered broker activity in pre-IPO shares; SharesPost paid $80,000 and its chief executive $20,000, and SharesPost then joined FINRA (SEC press release 2012-43). Forge bought SharesPost in 2020.
• Forge Securities LLC: BrokerCheck shows no disciplinary events for the firm itself, though its Form CRS answers yes to legal or disciplinary history on the strength of disclosures from non-registered control affiliates (CRD 134596; the count is unverified at publication). We found no FINRA AWC or SEC order against Forge Securities or Forge Global Advisors.
• NYSE, December 31, 2024: non-compliance notice for a 30-day average price below $1.00; cured by the 1-for-15 reverse split effective April 15, 2025 (Business Wire, January 3 and May 2, 2025).

Litigation

• Alta Partners, LLC v. Forge Global Holdings, Inc., S.D.N.Y. 1:23-cv-02647: a warrant holder sued under Securities Act Section 11 and for breach of contract over the SPAC’s public warrants. In March 2024 the court dismissed three counts and narrowed a fourth, but let the Section 11 claim proceed on the allegation that the Form S-4 misrepresented that it registered the public warrants (Justia, doc. 32, S.D.N.Y. 2024; Gibson Dunn, 2024). The outcome after that ruling is not verified at publication.
• Merger litigation, December 2025: four stockholder suits in Illinois, New York and California alleging the merger proxy was incomplete, including Jocic v. Forge Global Holdings, No. 25-cv-15078 (N.D. Ill., December 11, 2025) and Carroll v. Forge Global Holdings, Index No. 656562/2025 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., December 17, 2025). Forge called them meritless and issued supplemental disclosures on January 13, 2026 to avoid delay (Forge 8-K). The vote and the close followed.
• Sestante Capital and Anduril: in December 2025 the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Giovanni Pennetta of Sestante Capital LLC with selling non-existent Anduril pre-IPO exposure through NextGenTech Investments LLC, taking about $10.5M from at least six investors between February 2021 and December 2025. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud on March 5, 2026 and was sentenced on June 9, 2026 to four years, with about $11.9M of restitution ordered (DOJ SDNY, December 2025; Investment Executive, 2026). On March 12, 2026 the law firm Meyer Wilson Werning announced an investigation into whether Forge Securities representatives directed clients into Sestante and met their Regulation Best Interest obligations (GlobeNewswire, March 12, 2026). That is a plaintiffs’ firm’s investigation, not a charge; no regulator has alleged Forge involvement, and we found no comment from Forge.
• Linqto: a rival that took $500M from about 13,000 customers who never held title to their shares, Linqto filed Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas on July 8, 2025. On January 13, 2026 its creditors’ committee chose Forge Global, Inc. as Liquidating Trustee of the customer trust and VanEck as manager of a closed-end fund; the plan was confirmed on February 6, 2026 with more than 95% of voting customers in favour (Business Wire, January 13 and February 6, 2026). On July 15, 2026, five days before the trust’s July 20 launch, Forge notified the debtors it would not serve, citing unspecified regulatory or compliance concerns; the debtors say the instruction came from Schwab. Linqto and the committee sued Forge for specific performance; on August 10, 2026 Linqto said it would pursue damages against Forge and Schwab and look for another route out of Chapter 11 (Bloomberg Law, July 2026; Business Wire, August 10, 2026). The customer securities at stake were valued at $657M in June 2025 and $1.3B in May 2026. This is the single most important 2026 fact about Forge for a prospective customer: its new owner will pull it out of a commitment to 13,000 small investors, on five days’ notice, if compliance risk looks wrong.

Complaints

Forge Global’s own Trustpilot page carries 2 reviews, too few to read (September 2026); the “Forge Financial Group” and “Forge Global UK” profiles are different businesses that get conflated in search results. Forge Trust, the IRA custodian, is BBB-accredited with an A+ rating, which measures how a business answers complaints rather than what its customers think of it, and scores 2.5 out of 5 on Trustpilot and 1.4 on ComplaintsBoard (September 2026); the recurring themes are a $175 termination fee, fee increases after opening and slow transfers out. That is unverified customer report on a small sample, and we could not verify a BBB complaint count at publication. Third-party reviews of the marketplace in 2026 converge on three complaints: the $100,000 minimum, the fee stacked on a spread you cannot see, and 42-plus days to close (AngelInvestorsNetwork; AltStreet; ModernAlts, 2026).

Red flags, in order of weight

1. You cannot see the market. No order book, no last-trade tape; the price is what the specialist says a seller will take. Hiive publishes hourly bids and asks and Nasdaq Private Market sells Tape D; Forge sells Forge Price, a model.
2. Schwab’s compliance stance became Forge’s product policy in March 2026. The Linqto walk-out shows the parent will cut a commitment quickly when it sees regulatory risk. Expect fewer, larger, cleaner names.
3. Four revenue lines on the same share. Brokerage on the trade, advisory fees on the fund, custody on the IRA, data on the price. The conflicts are disclosed, not eliminated.

Two lists. Be honest about which one you are on before you open the account.

Forge suits you if:

• You are accredited with at least $1M of investable assets outside your home and can put $100,000 into one name and $250,000 or more into private shares in total, so one company’s failure is a 5% to 10% event, not a 50% one.
• You can read a private placement memorandum’s fee table and a stock transfer agreement’s ROFR clause yourself.
• You want a specific late-stage company, one of the 200-odd with a Forge Price, and have a view on its next round or listing worth paying 2% to 4% plus a spread to act on.
• You value a bank-owned broker, SIPC coverage on cash in transit and a Schwab relationship over price transparency, and your liquidity plan does not include selling these shares for 5 years.

Skip Forge if:

• You have less than $250,000 for private markets in total. EquityZen at $5,000 and 2.5% a side, Hiive at $25,000, Augment’s $10,000 Collective SPVs or a listed fund (ARK Venture Fund, $500 and 2.75% a year; Destiny Tech100, one share and 2.5% a year) give you diversification Forge’s minimum cannot, though none of those wrappers is cheap.
• You want to trade, not hold. A 45-to-60-day close and a 30-to-45-business-day ROFR window mean the price you agreed is two months stale by the time you own anything.
• You are buying because a name is famous. SpaceX, the most-bid name on Forge in 2025, has been public since June 12, 2026; the next one will be priced at its last tender, and the 2025 IPO class shows what famous is worth after the lock-up.

Forge beside its named competitors and one liquid alternative. Minimums and fees are as of September 2026, from each platform’s published pages or its Form CRS.

Which reader goes where. If you want one specific late-stage name at $100,000 or more and you bank at Schwab, Forge is the incumbent and the safest balance sheet. If you want the same name at $25,000 and want to see the bids before you call anyone, Hiive is the only one of the five with a live book, and its 0% standard buyer fee is the cheapest entry at that tier. If you have $5,000 to $50,000 and want several names, EquityZen’s 2.5% a side after the Morgan Stanley cut is cheaper than Forge’s typical commission and a twentieth of its minimum, at the cost of owning a fund interest rather than stock. Augment’s Collective SPVs at $10,000 with no management fee or carry are the cheapest wrapper on the list, on the youngest platform. Nasdaq Private Market’s 1% is the lowest headline fee, and it is charged to employees selling into company-run programmes, not to a buyer hunting a name. If you cannot say why a specific private company will beat the Nasdaq-100 by 3 points a year after Forge’s fees, QQQ at 0.20% is the answer.

The real sequence, then the six documents to read before a wire.

1. Create the account at Forge’s site, free. Since March 2026 expect Schwab’s know-your-customer stack behind it.
2. Verify identity and accreditation. Tax returns or W-2s (income test), statements (net-worth test), or a third-party letter dated within 90 days. Forge publishes no turnaround; allow a week.
3. Browse, then submit an indication of interest: company, shares or dollar amount, price. It is non-binding.
4. Negotiate with the specialist. Get the buyer fee, the seller fee if disclosed, the share class, the transfer route and the timeline in writing before you agree terms.
5. Sign and fund. Transfer agreement or subscription documents; wire to Forge Securities’ account, which holds the funds until close.
6. Wait out the ROFR window, 30 to 45 business days, then transfer approval, then settlement, 45 to 60 days from match in total.
7. Record what you own: the executed transfer agreement, the transfer-agent confirmation and your basis (price plus commission).

The six things to read before wiring:

• Forge Securities’ Form CRS, two pages, for the 2% to 5% fee, the sub-minimum surcharge and the principal-trading and placement-agent conflicts.
• The fee disclosure for your trade, in writing, and the fund fee table if it is a Forge Fund, with “per year” or “one-time” next to each line.
• The company’s transfer restrictions: the ROFR clause, the board-approval clause and any co-sale right, in the transfer agreement or the bylaws as Forge provides them.
• The share class and the preference stack: common stock sits under every preferred series in a downside sale, so ask what liquidation preference sits ahead of your shares.
• The last primary round and the last tender: price, date and valuation, so you know whether your price is a discount or a premium to money that saw the financials.
• Forge Global Advisors’ Form ADV Part 2A if you are buying a fund, for the fee ranges and for the statement that Forge Securities is typically the placement agent.

Forge is what it says it is: the largest and best-capitalised broker of late-stage private shares in the United States, with a real regulatory perimeter, a real custody business and, since March 2, 2026, a parent whose balance sheet ends the question of whether it survives. For an accredited investor who wants $100,000 or more of one private company and can wait 45 to 60 days and then five years, it is the default counterparty, and 2% to 4% on a closed trade is not unreasonable for a negotiated transfer of restricted stock.

That is not most of the people searching for a Forge review. Most of them have $25,000 to $100,000, want SpaceX or OpenAI or Anthropic, and are being told by a marketing page that the private market returned 75.6% in a year. SpaceX has been public since June 12, 2026. The 75.6% is an index of Forge’s own marks to September 30, 2025, rebalanced toward the names that trade, and in Q2 2026 that index rose 11.7% while the Nasdaq-100 rose 28%. The fee is the disclosed 2% to 4% plus an undisclosed spread, or a fund wrapper that can take a third of the gross return at the top of its ranges. And the quoted price is not a price; it is a model with, in Forge’s words, possibly very few inputs. For that reader, EquityZen at $5,000 and 2.5% a side, Hiive at $25,000 with a visible book, or a listed fund at one share is the better instrument, and the Nasdaq-100 at 0.20% a year is the one to beat.

We rate Forge 3 out of 5. The rating would rise to 3.5 if Schwab does three things: put the marketplace inside Schwab accounts with a lower minimum for direct trades, publish the Megacorn Fund’s fee table at or under 1.5% a year all-in, and publish what Forge never did as a public company, a realised return series for customers by vintage. It would fall to 2.5 if the Linqto pattern repeats, if a regulator’s finding follows the Sestante investigation, or if the marketplace narrows to a Schwab-approved dozen names while the data products keep pricing 250.

What to watch, with dates: Schwab’s quarterly calls for the first disclosure of Forge volume or revenue as a line item (the July 21, 2026 call said “not material”); the Linqto docket in the Southern District of Texas for a settlement or judgment and the identity of the replacement trustee; the Megacorn Fund’s effective prospectus for its fee table and minimum; Forge Price and FPMI in the six months after the SpaceX lock-up expires in December 2026; and the spring 2027 Form ADV for Forge Global Advisors, which will show whether Schwab has moved the fund business toward lower fees or left the ranges alone.

Nothing in this review is investment advice; it is research, dated September 17, 2026, and you should read the documents named above before you wire money to anyone.