Some of the most sophisticated, globally mobile investors in private markets move capital through Equitybee. Here's where they bank - and why it should matter to every institution competing for their business.
In our last analysis, we mapped where pre-IPO tech employees bank - the people exercising stock options at companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Databricks. Now we turn to the other side of our marketplace: the investors funding those exercises.
This is a different cohort entirely. Equitybee's investor base spans high-net-worth individuals, registered investment advisors (RIAs), asset managers, and financial institutions. When they fund a deal, capital moves by wire - which puts us at the precise moment that reveals where this capital-rich, globally distributed cohort actually banks.
The data below reflects investor funding transactions processed on the Equitybee platform between March 2020 and June 2026. For any institution competing to win, retain, or grow these relationships, the data is worth a close look.
HNWIs, RIAs
& institutions
180
~17%
When we look across our transaction data, the distribution is striking. A small number of large banks dominate, with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo together accounting for well over half of all incoming wires.
Based on investor accounts across Equitybee's platform, March 2020 - June 2026. Showing top 10 of 180 institutions. Figures are share of total investor accounts.
But the ranking isn't the interesting part. The interesting part is what it signals about who these clients are - and how differently the institutions on this list are positioned to serve them.
The employee cohort was overwhelmingly domestic. The investor base is not. Roughly one in six investor accounts sits at a bank outside the US - Singapore's DBS, Swiss private banks like UBS and Julius Baer, the Netherlands' ABN AMRO, Australia's Macquarie, Emirates NBD in the UAE, and dozens of European regionals.
Approximate split by headquarters region of the receiving institution.
Accredited and institutional capital is globally mobile in a way an engineer's paycheck is not. For any institution with cross-border capabilities, this cohort is a natural fit - and the data suggests the field is still wide open internationally.
On the employee side, the standout was Charles Schwab - a sign of investment sophistication. Among investors, that signal is far stronger. Dedicated private banks and wealth managers appear throughout: UBS, Julius Baer, Edmond de Rothschild, Safra, and Northern Trust among them.
This is the sharpest contrast with our last post. Among employees, neobanks were virtually absent - for serious money, they defaulted to incumbents. Among investors, fintechs are genuinely competitive. Revolut cracks the top 10. Wise follows close behind. Mercury, SoFi, Bunq, N26, Monzo, and Starling all appear.
Fintech/neobank presence as a share of each cohort's total accounts. Illustrative comparison.
Our read: this reflects the global, tech-native profile of the investor base. Many are international and comfortable moving capital through modern rails - especially Wise and Revolut, which excel at cross-border transfers. For a fintech expanding into wealth and investment services, this is proof the door is already open with exactly the kind of high-value customer that's hardest to acquire.
All figures represent an aggregate of investor funding transactions processed on the Equitybee platform between March 2020 and June 2026, presented as a share of total investor accounts. The investor-vs-employee comparison draws on two different cohorts from our own platform; it is intended to be directional and illustrative, not a precise measurement, and readers should not treat the percentages as exact. The geographic and category groupings shown above are approximate, based on each institution's headquarters or primary business line. Institutional M&A activity over this period (e.g., JPMorgan Chase's acquisition of First Republic Bank in May 2023) may also affect how individual institution figures are interpreted.
Here's the common opportunity across every institution on this list: these clients are already in your system - you may simply not know who they are. Identifying which of your existing account holders are active private-market investors, and meeting them with the right private-market products and advisory services, is one of the clearest paths to deepening these relationships and growing share of wallet. This is a cohort that, almost by definition, wants access to private markets. The institutions that recognize them early and serve that demand will capture far more of the relationship than those treating them as ordinary depositors.The specific opportunity looks different segment by segment:
For the incumbents (e.g. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi): You already hold the primary relationship for a large share of this cohort - the same way you do on the employee side. The opportunity is depth: these are clients with private-markets exposure and growing liquid wealth. The question is whether your wealth and private-banking arms are identifying them and capturing the full relationship, or just holding the checking account.
For the private banks (e.g. UBS, Julius Baer, and peers): Your presence in this data confirms the thesis - this is advised, cross-border wealth. The cohort funding private-market deals is precisely the profile your business is built around. Surfacing these clients and expanding their private-market access is a natural way to grow the relationships you already have.
For the investment-native platforms (e.g. Charles Schwab): Your overrepresentation signals clients who self-direct and think like investors. This is a cohort that already lives in markets - a natural audience for sophisticated investment, private-market access, and cash-management products you can grow into.
For the fintech challengers (e.g. SoFi, Mercury, Revolut, Wise): You've done what almost no neobank achieved on the employee side - you've won real share of serious, high-value money. The data suggests meaningful room to grow that share by identifying these investors and offering them private-market products and services, especially among globally mobile clients who already trust modern rails for cross-border capital movement.
A word on methodology
This analysis is drawn from wire transfer metadata collected in the ordinary course of processing Equitybee investor funding transactions, aggregated across transactions processed on the Equitybee platform between March 2020 and June 2026. All data is presented as a share of total investor accounts - no absolute figures, individual investor data, or personally identifying information is included or derivable from this analysis. Institution names were normalized to consolidate naming variants (e.g., "Chase," "JP Morgan," and "JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A." are counted as one institution).
The comparison between the investor and employee cohorts draws on two different populations from our own platform data over the same period. It is intended to be directional and illustrative, not a precise apples-to-apples measurement, and readers should not treat the percentages as exact. Geographic and category groupings are approximate and based on each institution's headquarters or primary business line. Institutional M&A activity during this period - most notably JPMorgan Chase's acquisition of First Republic Bank in May 2023 - may also affect how individual institution figures should be interpreted. The appearance of any institution in this data reflects observed wire activity only and does not imply any partnership with, endorsement by, or affiliation with Equitybee.
Equitybee is a platform connecting tech employees with accredited investors to fund stock option exercises in pre-IPO companies. This post is informational and does not constitute financial or investment advice. All figures are derived from internal platform data covering investor funding transactions processed between March 2020 and June 2026, and are presented as percentages of total investor accounts. Comparisons between the investor and employee cohorts are intended to be illustrative and directional only. Geographic and category groupings are approximate and based on institution headquarters or primary business line. Mentions of specific institutions are observational and do not imply any business relationship, partnership, endorsement, or affiliation.