AST Private Company Solutions Launches Astrella™, Harnessing Technology to Transform Private Company Equity Ownership Ecosystem

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AST Private Company Solutions™ (AST PCS) introduces its innovative software-as-a-service (SaaS) based solution for privately-held companies at a launch party today. The platform, called Astrella, provides solutions for managing capitalization (cap) tables and other equity ownership data.

Incorporating both distributed ledger and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, Astrella has been designed from the ground up to bring new efficiencies and transparency to the growing equity ownership market and the increasing number of private equity firms, venture capital firms, banks and providers now serving it.

Astrella serves as the primary technology platform for AST PCS, the Silicon Valley-based unit of AST launched in 2019, and supports an API-based ecosystem, enabling further partnerships with diverse tech-forward participants like third-party valuation providers, secondary trading/liquidity, and wealth management advisors.

Astrella arrives at a time when private companies are waiting longer to contemplate an exit and their cap tables are becoming more complex. As a result, investors and employees are demanding sophisticated solutions like secondary market platforms and lending programs. The private market’s growth requires maturity in ownership data management tools equal to public companies, with channels allowing information and analysis of current executive ownership, equity value across investment rounds, and equity dilution to seamlessly flow across valuation, regulatory, and compliance functions in real time.

Marty Flanigan, CEO of AST, stated, “AST is already the industry-leading provider to public companies for initial public offering services, shareholder communications and ownership data management. In the PCS context, our clients were asking us to further leverage that expertise, and develop a more sophisticated and secure solution that supports all private companies globally and including private equity-backed companies and LLCs, as a natural and logical extension of what we do. We found the right team to build this next-generation solution to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s opportunities and in combining our private company solutions with our public company suite of services, we will now be able to service our clients at any stage of growth.”

“The private ownership market is increasingly global in nature and rapidly transforming from an undisciplined past to structured corporate activity, trading and investment. Today, spreadsheets are managing trillions of investor wealth and have simply not kept up with the increasing complexity of private companies’ cap tables, potentially costing investors significant returns at exit,” added Carine Schneider, AST PCS president. “Leveraging AST’s leading industry position in ownership data management, Astrella’s design elements and its ongoing technology team support are a perfect complement to this demand providing a robust data solution of institutional quality to an evolving market. We are very excited to launch this product and iterate upon it with new partners going forward.”

AST PCS introduces Astrella today at the Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park featuring a panel of experts speaking about “The Future of the Private Market.” Moderated by Ms. Schneider, participants on the panel are former SEC Commissioner and Partner at WilmerHale, Dan Gallagher; Managing Partner of Riverwood Capital, Chris Varelas; and Wall Street Journal columnist and former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler. AST – PCS is planning a formal launch in New York City later this spring.

About AST Private Company Solutions, Inc.

Founded in 2019, AST PCS is a division of AST and is focused on serving private companies worldwide. Astrella, a cloud-based SaaS solution, allows private companies to manage their ownership data, including the cap table and employee equity plans and to connect directly with related service providers to support efficient workflow, and provide access to investors, advisors and employees. For more information, visit www.astrella.com.

About AST

AST was originally founded as a transfer agent over 45 years ago. Through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, AST has pioneered a new model of integrated ownership data management, advisory services and financial technology in the industry. AST affiliates include AST Trust Company (Canada), D.F. King & Co, Inc., Donlin, Recano & Company, Inc and AST Private Company Solutions, Inc.

Today, AST offers a full scope of ownership services that include registry services, corporate proxy solicitation and advisory solutions, employee plan services, information agent, mutual fund proxy solicitation, shareholder identification and asset recovery offerings. For more information, please visit www.astfinancial.com.