PISCES
FCA-regulated sandbox enabling secondary trading of pre-IPO private company shares; first live trades March 2026.
Last refreshed: 13 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Will PISCES finally give UK startup employees what their Silicon Valley peers already have?
Timeline for PISCES
Completed first live trading events in March 2026
UK Startups and Innovation: PISCES runs first pre-IPO trading events- What is PISCES and how does it let you sell private company shares?
- PISCES is an FCA-regulated sandbox enabling secondary trading of shares in private companies. Existing shareholders can sell to institutional investors through platforms run by JP Jenkins or the London Stock Exchange's Private Securities Market, without the company needing to go public.Source: FCA / Osborne Clarke
- Can employees sell startup shares on PISCES?
- Yes in principle — PISCES is designed partly to create liquidity for employee shareholders. However buyers must be institutional investors specified by the FCA sandbox rules; employees cannot sell to other retail investors.Source: FCA PISCES rules
- Is PISCES the same as a stock exchange?
- No. PISCES is a secondary market for private company shares, not a public stock exchange. It operates intermittently (not continuously) and is restricted to institutional buyers. Companies trading on PISCES remain private and are not subject to public listing rules.Source: FCA / Mills & Reeve
- Which companies are using the PISCES sandbox so far?
- JP Jenkins ran its first PISCES trading window 18-24 March 2026. The LSE's Private Securities Market also completed its first event in March 2026. The specific companies whose shares were traded have not been disclosed.Source: FCA / Lowdown reporting
Background
PISCES — the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System — completed its first live trading events in March 2026. JP Jenkins ran a window from 18-24 March; the London Stock Exchange's Private Securities Market also completed its inaugural trading event. Both platforms were approved by the FCA under its sandbox regime, which runs until 2030, allowing the regulator to refine the rules before deciding whether to make PISCES permanent or permanent-with-changes.
PISCES was developed jointly by HM Treasury, the FCA, and the London Stock Exchange. It creates a regulated secondary market for shares in UK and overseas private companies — enabling existing shareholders (employees, angels, early VCs) to sell stakes to institutional investors without the company being listed on a public exchange. The LSE's Private Securities Market runs as a single-day auction, concentrating liquidity at a single clearing point suited to large institutional block trades. JP Jenkins offers greater flexibility, including continuous trading windows of up to five consecutive business days per month, suited to smaller or more frequent transactions. Both platforms restrict buyers to specified categories of institutional investors — retail participation is not permitted under the sandbox rules.
PISCES addresses a long-standing friction in the UK startup ecosystem: the lack of secondary liquidity for pre-IPO shares traps employee equity for years and makes it harder for UK companies to compete for talent against US peers with more liquid stock programmes. By enabling intermittent secondary trading, PISCES also gives investors partial exits without forcing a company to list on a public market before it is ready — reducing pressure for premature IPOs and potentially keeping more high-growth companies UK-headquartered for longer.