Massage therapist James Lakin didn’t even know it was possible for outsiders to buy stakes in private companies until a client told him that he could be approved to do so on a platform called Linqto. Now, he’s one of thousands of retail investors with frozen savings after the firm
With trillions of dollars potentially flowing into private markets as restrictions on mom-and-pop investors are relaxed, Linqto finds itself at the center of a debate over the safeguards for amateurs putting money in hard-to-value assets that can be difficult to sell when things go wrong.
One risk ...