We Rebuilt Augment: A New Foundation for Private Markets

The full story of Augment's product rebuild, front to back. What 10,000 users taught us, the redesigned investing experience, dashboard, and Explore, and the new foundation now powering the iOS app, cash accounts, and expanded Collective offerings.

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There's a distinct feeling when you hit your stride as a startup. Augment had been around for a couple of years and the product had seen several iterations when we launched Augment Collective in 2024. Then the vision crystallized. Don’t just bring isolated products to private markets. Build the infrastructure and the app for a new private market.

Last August we raised a $12M Series A. We had over 10,000 registered users and nearly $1B of AUM. The product was moving real money in private markets, and by most measures, it was working. People liked it.

But Augment wasn't the same company it had been. Our direction had become focused and sharp. We rebranded and our voice emerged strong in the industry. The product just hadn't kept up.

We knew we could do better.

So we redesigned and rebuilt it. Frontend, backend, everything.

The product wasn't keeping up

The product carried remnants of past concepts, built for a version of Augment that no longer existed. The gap showed up in a pattern of small ones. Users landed on the platform and didn't know where to go next. Investing had more steps than necessary. Key actions weren't where you'd expect them. Features had been absorbed without being rethought. It became a patchwork rather than a cohesive experience.

Augment gives accredited investors access to private market investment opportunities, including some of the most closely watched technology companies.

But the interface wasn't ready for what was coming next: cash accounts, expanded investment products, trading, deeper private market data and insights. We needed a foundation that could support all of it.

What 10,000 users taught us

The clearest signal from our users was simple: they knew exactly what they wanted coming in the door. They were excited about technology, excited about the future, and they wanted in.

The thing about private market investing is there’s no blueprint. No muscle memory. No pattern you’ve seen a hundred times. Most of our users had never done this before, and the steps between "I want to own a piece of SpaceX" and actually owning it are unfamiliar. Every moment of confusion is amplified. Users who might tolerate a poor onboarding experience on a social app will not tolerate it when they're considering a $25,000 purchase. (Dollar amount is for illustrative purposes only.)

What we kept seeing: users who believed in the investment and still got stuck. They'd land on a company page and not know what to do next. They'd start an investment and pause somewhere in the middle. They'd come back to the platform and struggle to find what mattered to them. Yet they cared enough to keep coming back.

The data we offered through the platform told much of the same story. We had in-house thought leadership, price charts, funding history, financials, news. Company reports and analytics. But it was dense, and we were surfacing too much of it at once. It competed for attention, creating more ambiguity than clarity when it didn’t tell a story.

Our north star became simple: bring the same clarity and accessibility to private markets that the best consumer fintech products brought to their own asset classes. Remove the friction that gets in the way of understanding something genuinely complex. Not by dumbing it down, but by doing the hard work of deciding what matters, when it matters, and getting out of the way.

Simplicity is sophistication

Once we agreed on what was broken, we needed to agree on how to fix it.

Simplicity is sophistication became our core value and it shaped every decision. The right experience isn't the one that shows you everything. It's the one that shows you the right thing at the right moment. We moved toward one clear action per screen and one primary piece of information per card. We stripped away data that wasn't earning its place. What remained got organized into a clear hierarchy: the most important information up front, depth available one tap away under clearly labeled tabs. We decide what's important. The user gets clarity, not noise.

Aesthetics as trust. For a user investing in a private company for the first time, the way the product looks and feels is part of how they decide whether to trust it. Not in a superficial way, in a real one. If the UI feels clean, considered, and easy to navigate, it signals that the people behind it are serious. Every visual decision in the redesign was run through that filter. Hierarchy is clear. Typography guides the eye. The thing you need to act on is the most prominent thing on the screen.

Abstract the complexity, keep the transparency. Private market transactions involve complex transactions, compliance and regulatory systems, KYC verification, and timelines that are nothing like buying a stock. We don't hide that. But we don't front-load it either. The product guides users through the process step by step, in plain language. The goal is that by the time a user completes their first investment, they feel like it was straightforward. Easy to repeat.

What we designed and built

The investing experience was where all of this had to come together. When someone is about to commit real money to a private company for the first time, every step has to feel intentional. We reduced friction where we could, rewrote the language throughout, and reorganized the steps so the logic is obvious. The steps communicate what's happening and why without overwhelming the user with the process.

The dashboard became the anchor. Action items, portfolio balance, top holdings, Collective offerings, watchlist, and the latest news, all in one place. When you see a company you want to act on, the first step of that action is one click away. You don't navigate to a company page, find the invest button, and start from scratch. It's there when you need it.

Explore became a research tool. Company profiles got reimagined. We kept the depth: interactive price charts, funding round history, company information, curated news and research. But we reorganized how it's presented. Key information leads. Everything else is accessible under clearly labeled tabs. A user can land on a company page and quickly understand what they're looking at, without filtering through noise to get there.

A new foundation

The rebuild wasn't a feature update. It was the whole product, front to back, on a foundation built to scale.

The iOS app launched this year. Together with the web experience, they form a single cohesive interface with the same design system, same logic, same feel, wherever you are.

We recently launched cash accounts. Cash accounts give users a true end-to-end financial experience inside Augment. Move money in, make multiple investments quickly and seamlessly, receive distributions, reinvest. No interruptions, no jumping between platforms or banking apps. Private market investing, contained in one place.

We've continued to expand our Collective offerings. More companies are coming through the platform, deepening the market for investors to buy and sell.

This is only the beginning.

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