SecondMarket: $70 Million In Private Shares Traded In March

Transactions of private-company stock on SecondMarket nearly doubled in March, rising to $70 million from $43.8 million in February. It is the highest amount that has ever been traded on SecondMarket. The stats are in its March report, which you can download here.

A full 41% of the transactions were sales of Facebook stock, compared to 48% in January. We’ve reported that these sales are being completed for as high as $40 per share (or a $17.6 billion valuation). Despite the demand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg does not appear to be in any rush to take the company public.

MedeAnalytics, a healthcare performance analytics company, saw 14% of the transactions, LinkedIn took 10% of the transactions, with Zynga taking 7% of the sales, and Twitter and LifeLock each taking 4% of the total. eSolar, Slide, Kayak, and Serious Materials were also seeing transactions in March. The transactions concentrated mainly in consumer products and services (72%), media and entertainment (14%) and IT services (14%).

In terms of unmet bids, Facebook led the way with one-third of all buyside demand followed by Twitter (6%), LinkedIn (5%) and CraigsList (4%). On the seller side, ex-employees of start-ups continue to make up the bulk of parties who are selling shares, but the percentage of current employees and investors selling shares rose slightly in March.