Digital wealth manager Moneybox and autonomous driving startup Wayve are considering allowing investors to sell shares on London’s Pisces market, a newly launched trading platform for private businesses, The Observer can reveal.
The Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System, better known by its horoscope acronym, was introduced in March, and is widely viewed as a way for private investors to cash out on early stage investments without the costs and regulatory burden of an initial public offering. Interest from two of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies is a sign that this “stepping stone” approach may be working.
Moneybox, which started as a service that rounded up purchases to the nearest pound and reinvests the pennies, now offers a suite of ISAs. Its assets under management reached £19bn last year, a 62% increase on 2024. Wayve raised $1.5bn in February at an $8.6bn valuation, and plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber in London later this summer.
“We operate in a world where companies like Moneybox are seeking ways to stay private for longer,” said a spokesperson for Moneybox. “However, shareholders in private companies are still seeking liquidity. That’s why companies like Moneybox (and Monzo and Revolut) have, over the last few years, run private, secondary sale opportunities for their investors.”
The number of companies trading publicly on the London Stock Exchange stood at 1,545 in March, near to a record low, while the window for new offerings remains closed. Several UK firms looking at a potential float – including Boots, Visma, RAC and Loveholidays – have suspended or delayed plans to the end of 2026 and beyond due to volatility from the Iran war or deal interest from private buyers.
In that context, City cynics may say Pisces is not so much a stepping stone as a substitute for public markets. If early backers get a way out, that may reduce pressure on founders and boards to float.
But there’s still optimism about the potential participation of names such as Moneybox and Wayve: “I said to the exchange from the very beginning, try and get an existing well-known company to print a trade through Pisces,” says the boss of one of the UK’s largest investment banks. “They know who the buyers are. They’ve done the documentation. If a household name does it, that will start a ball rolling.”
Photograph by Tim Andrew/Wayve
Newsletters
Choose the newsletters you want to receive
View more
For information about how The Observer protects your data, read our Privacy Policy