Linqto

Linqto was founded around 2019 by William "Bill" Sarris, building a platform that gave accredited retail investors access to indirect exposure to shares of well-known, high-profile private companies that had not yet gone public, such as SpaceX and the crypto company Ripple, structuring these investments through special purpose vehicles that purchased and held the underlying private company shares on investors' behalf, since the shares themselves were typically acquired through secondary market transactions exempt from public securities registration requirements. The platform grew to facilitate more than $460 million in transactions with more than 13,000 investors, capitalizing on strong retail investor appetite for access to pre-IPO investment opportunities that had traditionally been available almost exclusively to institutional investors and the wealthiest individuals. Linqto's unraveling began in October 2024, when the company's former chief revenue officer filed a lawsuit alleging serious compliance failures and retaliation, the same month the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened a formal investigation into potential securities law violations, followed by a FINRA examination of Linqto's broker-dealer affiliate in December 2024. After a new CEO, Dan Siciliano, took over in January 2025, he and new leadership uncovered what the company later described as "systematic and pervasive non-compliance" and serious securities law violations dating back to 2020 under founder Sarris's leadership, including allegations that customers had been misled about the nature of what they were actually purchasing and that the company had failed to properly form the legal entities required under Delaware law to hold certain investments. Linqto suspended its trading platform in March 2025 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2025, reporting between $500 million and $1 billion each in assets and liabilities; a subsequent class-action lawsuit alleged Sarris and the company had defrauded thousands of retail investors, and creditors' counsel characterized the case in bankruptcy court as "a fraud case," crediting the new management team as effectively whistleblowers who exposed misconduct that predated them. Linqto's reorganization plan was confirmed by the bankruptcy court in February 2026, with customers voting overwhelmingly to approve a plan offering two possible paths to recovery.

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