Techdollar launched publicly today and announced the closing of a $3 million pre-seed round, introducing a lending platform that allows employees, founders and early investors of high-growth private companies to borrow against their pre-IPO equity – without selling their shares or waiting for a liquidity event.
The funding round is led by No Limit Holdings, backed by ReforgeVC, and angels Michael Egorov (founder, Curve Finance), Roy Learner (previously Framework Ventures) and Silicon Valley Bank and self-investment from founders Terence McMenamin and David Tollemache. Prior to launch, Techdollar built a pipeline of more than $100 million in qualified loan requests – out of a total of more than $400 million in loan requests – from employees and investors of leading AI, aerospace, defense, robotics and payments companies.
“Techdollar is well positioned at the intersection of cutting-edge technology RWA and DeFi,” said Gin Chao, founding partner of No Limit Holdings, “Unlock serves the crypto-native community with highly sought-after yield products derived from technology companies that are driving global productivity in the coming decade and beyond.”
A wave of paper wealth that employees still can’t touch
The problem Techdollar solved became impossible to ignore in real time this month. When SpaceX went public on June 12, about 4,400 current and former employees entered millionaire territory — many of them engineers, technicians and workers who had been paid in stock for years. But for most of those years, that wealth existed only on a screen: they couldn’t sell it, borrow against it, or use it. It took a single, long-delayed liquidity event to unlock it.
Most of the companies defining the next business cycle are still at this early stage – and their employees are stuck in exactly the position SpaceX was in before this month. The combined valuation of the world’s leading private AI companies now exceeds $2.7 trillion, while the path to IPO for companies valued at more than $500 million spans more than a decade. This leaves a generation of those who built these businesses rich on paper and deprived of access.
Traditional lenders have done little to help. Banks routinely turn away borrowers below high collateral thresholds and have historically extended pre-IPO credit only to senior executives on preferential terms – treating private equity as exposure to speculative risks, even though a mature secondary market releases tens of billions in volume each year. Secondary transactions hit a record $226 billion in 2025, according to Evercore.
“The financial system was never built for the early employees who help build and scale these companies,” said Terence McMenamin, co-founder and CEO of Techdollar. “Employee number three should have the same access to his own wealth as the CEO. Banks value these stocks as a speculative bet, but the secondary market proves that is not the case. We are correcting this valuation error and doing it at a fraction of the cost of alternatives.”
What makes Techdollar different?
Until now, an employee holding valuable private stock had three bad options: sell in a tender with a discount and a tax bill, get a bank line available only to executives in very important positions, or simply wait years for an IPO. Techdollar was designed for all those left behind by the existing system.
The model is closer to a mortgage than a venture bet: just as mortgages allow owners to put their most valuable asset to work without selling it, Techdollar allows shareholders to unlock liquidity from their equity while retaining full ownership and all future benefits. Borrowers keep their shares, avoid a taxable sale, and face no restrictions on how they use the funds.
“Trillions of dollars are locked up in the world’s most valuable private companies, and as they stay private longer, that gap only widens. Techdollar is building the credit layer that will finally unlock it,” said Alexander Lin of Reforge. “Terence and David are an elite team uniquely positioned to build it, and we are thrilled to have taken the lead in their round.”
Techdollar is already integrated as a Pulley benefit and is in integration discussions with Carta, two of the leading equity management platforms – with the aim of making equity-backed loans a standard benefit for employees of early-stage technology companies.
The pre-seed funding will be used to accelerate platform development, strengthen product and sales teams, and deepen integrations and financial partnerships.
Techdollar is now available on techdollar.com.
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Techdollar builds the credit layer for private markets. The platform allows employees, founders and investors of high-growth private companies to access liquidity against their equity without selling shares, triggering tax events or losing long-term gains. Backed by real-time secondary market data and audited ownership verification, Techdollar funds loans in 24-48 hours against equity in companies in AI, quantum computing, robotics, aerospace, defense, and fintech.
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