ESO Fund vs EquityBee vs Secfi: Which stock option financing provider is right for you?
3 min
San Francisco native (yes, really). @uw and Lowell High alum. I like to nerd out on fintech, stock options and taxes.
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San Francisco native (yes, really). @uw and Lowell High alum. I like to nerd out on fintech, stock options and taxes.
If you’re comparing ESO Fund, EquityBee, and Secfi, you’re likely looking for a way to exercise your stock options while keeping more upside and cash in your pocket.
It can be overwhelming, because your cost usually isn’t just the strike price. You may also owe taxes when you exercise, even though you haven’t sold any shares yet. And if you’re leaving the company, you often only have 90 days to decide whether to exercise, find the cash, and understand the tax impact.
So you’re doing the right thing by evaluating your stock option financing providers. All three companies offer non-recourse financing for exercising your stock options, but their approaches vary.
Here’s the quick version:
ESO Fund is worth exploring if you want to move quickly.
EquityBee could be a fit if you like the idea of a market-style platform to fund your stock options exercise.
Secfi is best for employees at later-stage startups who want to fully understand the taxes and upside by modeling different scenarios, with 1:1 guidance from equity and wealth strategists.
In this article, we’ll compare ESO Fund, EquityBee, and Secfi in more detail based on how each solution works, what situation they're best suited for, cost structure, eligibility, and the type of support you get.
Secfi helps startup employees understand and act on their equity through scenario modelling, 1:1 guidance, non-recourse financing, and employee education. Try our free AI equity assistant Maeve.
Secfi, ESO Fund, and EquityBee all offer non-recourse financing for your equity. That means all three provide:
Access to funding without using personal assets. No cash or bank loans required. And because it’s not a traditional personal loan, your debt-to-income ratio stays the same.
No personal liability if your company doesn’t exit or perform as expected. Your house, car, and other assets are safe, and you don’t have to repay anything if there isn’t a successful exit.
Funding for exercise costs and potentially associated taxes. Taxes can be way more than expected, so this matters!
Both Secfi and ESO Fund offer relatively quick turnarounds. They’re all open to working around tight deadlines for eligible companies, and in some cases you could be funded in days. That’s helpful if you’re leaving a company and only have the typical 90 days or less to exercise your options. EquityBee is a marketplace which means you're dependent on whether there is an investor ready, so the timelines will depend on demand.
But what’s different? We’ve put together a table to help you understand the options.
| Features | Secfi | ESO Fund | EquityBee |
|---|---|---|---|
Core model | Equity planning platform with non-recourse financing. | Non-recourse funding provider | Marketplace-style platform connecting employees with investors for non-recourse funding |
Company relationships | Works directly with many private companies and employee programs | Primarily employee-focused | Marketplace connecting employees and investors |
Tools | AI equity assistant Maeve with scenario modeling for AMTExercise timingCapital gains, portfolio planningOption to connect directly to Carta | Simple AMT tax calculator | None explicitly mentioned |
Support & Guidance | 1:1 guidance from an equity strategist that is knowledgeable in equity, and tax strategies | 1:1 support from ESO Fund Partner who is assigned to you from your intake call | No explicit mention of 1:1 guidance |
Cost of exercising options on successful exit | Repay original amount5% platform feeAdvance Rate (similar to interest)Equity Share (based on your stock’s exit value) The specific rates depend on your company and stock options
| Repay original amount and sometimes a preferred returnOne flat percentage of equity
The specific percentage depends on your company and stock options | Repay original amount5% placement fee5% or higher stock appreciation feeInterestPredetermined share value
|
Option to access cash (liquidity) with non-recourse financing? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Typical fit | Later-stage startup executives and employees, with equity at a company expected to exist in a few years with $150M+ ARR and $1B valuation | Employees at startups which are both early stage and later stage
| Employees who want a marketplace-style platform connecting with investors |
*All information presented in this blog has been sourced from provider websites and is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing. However, providers may update their offerings, and details can change over time.
Secfi helps startup employees and executives understand, finance, and access value from their equity in one place.
Our founders had to walk away from millions in equity when they left their former companies, so they wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to other tech employees.
Today, Secfi is trusted by thousands of startup executives and employees to support their equity and wealth decisions.
We believe Secfi’s main advantage is that you don’t have to make your equity decision across separate calculators, advisors, lenders, and platforms. You can model your options, talk to an equity strategist, explore financing, and compare liquidity paths in one place.
That matters because each equity decision impacts the next. Exercising may change your tax bill. Selling may reduce your future upside. Financing may help you keep ownership, but it still needs to fit your broader financial goals.
Secfi also works directly with many private companies and their employees. Because we spend time understanding company fundamentals, liquidity dynamics, and employee needs, financing can be structured around the specific company rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. The goal is to create outcomes that work for employees while also aligning with company and investor interests.
Here are a few other reasons employees at companies like Anduril, Databricks and Canva have got non-recourse financing with Secfi:
Secfi can help you access liquidity from your equity, with 2 options that you can choose from.
If you want to keep ownership and potential future upside, our non-recourse financing can help you exercise your stock options or get liquidity from pre-IPO shares. Most of the time this includes both the exercise cost and the taxes due, which can make a meaningful difference if your tax bill is larger than expected.
If you’d rather sell shares outright, we can help you explore secondary market options through our network of buyers and market participants.
This gives you more than one option to compare when you have a major life milestone coming up, such as buying a home, covering expenses, or diversifying your investments.
Not all stock option financing is priced the same way. We evaluate each company individually rather than treating every startup as interchangeable.
Because we work directly with many later-stage private companies and their employees, our team can develop a deeper understanding of a company's stage, growth profile, liquidity outlook, and equity program. That company-specific underwriting helps us structure financing that aims to balance employee ownership, investor returns, and company considerations.
In practice, that means you're not simply matched with a generic financing product. You're working with a team that understands both your personal situation and the company behind the equity.
One of the hardest parts of startup equity is knowing who to ask for help. Your tax advisor or financially savvy friends may understand parts of the decision, but they probably don’t specialize in private company stock options.
Secfi’s equity strategists deal with these questions every day. We help startup executives and employees understand exercise timing, AMT, tax exposure, liquidity, and the tradeoffs of different equity decisions.
That means you’re not explaining your situation to a general support team. Secfi can help you understand what information you need, why it matters, and how one decision can affect the next.
We can also coordinate with your existing team, including your financial advisor, lawyer, or CPA. And if you need broader financial planning support, Secfi’s wealth team can help connect your equity decisions to your wider financial goals.
Our free AI equity assistant, Maeve, is purpose-built to help startup executives and employees understand and plan around your equity. You can ask questions in plain language, fact-check assumptions, and get calculations based on Secfi’s equity-specific models.
Unlike a general AI tool, Maeve is built for stock option scenarios like AMT, exercise timing, capital gains, exercise cost calculations, and portfolio analysis. It can use up-to-date private market price data and news to help you model more informed scenarios. You can set it up in seconds by linking directly to Carta or by uploading your grant details.
Secfi is likely a good fit if you:
ESO Fund focuses on non-recourse funding to help startup employees exercise stock options, cover related taxes, and in some cases get access to cash.
When you sign up for ESO Fund, you’re assigned what’s referred to as an ESO Fund Partner who supports you from your first call. Their site also includes a free AMT tax calculator which can give a basic sense of how much AMT tax you might owe if you exercise.
ESO Fund may be worth exploring if you work at an earlier-stage startup, because they’re open to less typical use cases than many other non-recourse financing providers.
All three companies offer non-recourse liquidity for employees who already own private company shares. That means in some cases, you can get cash for your pre-IPO current shares, where you retain ownership but share a portion of the upside on exit. But ESO is the only one who offers this service for RSU shares, specifically double-trigger (the most common form of RSUs).
While most non-recourse funding repayments include the initial amount plus several fees or interest, ESO simplifies this by charging a single percentage if you have a successful exit. The percentage may vary, but because everything is included, you can expect it to be double digits in size.
ESO Fund says most clients complete funding within 1 to 2 weeks, with urgent cases expedited as quickly as 24 hours.
That can be useful if you’re leaving your company, facing a 90-day exercise window, or trying to complete an exercise before a deadline.
ESO Fund is likely a good fit if you:
EquityBee helps startup employees exercise their stock options by connecting them with investors who fund the exercise cost and related taxes.
Unlike Secfi or ESO Fund, EquityBee’s model is more marketplace-led: employees apply through the platform, EquityBee connects them with investors, and those investors fund the exercise in exchange for a return if the company has a successful exit.
Like Secfi and ESO Fund, EquityBee offers non-recourse funding. Signing up is free, and you only repay if there’s a successful exit. You would then repay the original funding amount, including a 5% placement fee, plus interest and a predetermined percentage of the final share value. EquityBee also says employees pay a 5% stock appreciation fee only on proceeds they retain if there’s future upside, however their terms may vary more.
EquityBee’s main differentiator is its investor marketplace model. Instead of funding the exercise directly, EquityBee connects employees with investors who want exposure to private company equity.
This may be useful if your company attracts investor demand on the platform and you want to see whether outside investors are willing to fund your exercise. If your company is a less popular name, it may mean you’ll get higher terms as there won’t be as many investors.
EquityBee is likely a good fit if you:
Choosing between Secfi, EquityBee, and ESO Fund depends on your company stage, timeline, and how much support you want around the decision.
EquityBee makes sense if you want to move quickly to exercise your options. And if your startup is very early stage, ESO may be the only one able to provide funding
But when you’re at a later-stage private company and want full support, including licensed 1:1 equity and tax specialists, wealth advisors, and advanced AI modeling tools, we believe Secfi’s the way to go. And if you think your whole company would benefit from equity education, we can provide the training you need.
Get in touch with our team or try our AI equity assistant Maeve to see how Secfi can help you make and fund better equity decisions.
The tool shown here uses artificial intelligence and is for illustrative purposes only and not necessarily indicative of future results and there is no guarantee that similar results can be achieved. The information provided by the tool is not professional advice and is not intended by Secfi, Inc., its affiliates, and Secfi representatives, to be deemed as investment, legal, tax or other professional advice or recommendations of any kind, or to form the basis of any decision to do or to refrain from doing anything. Secfi does not review the accuracy or completeness of the information provided to us within the tool.
Yes. Secfi, EquityBee, and ESO Fund all offer non-recourse financing for stock option exercise. This means you can access funding without taking out a personal loan or putting personal assets on the line. If your company doesn’t exit or your shares become worthless, you generally don’t owe repayment.
Secfi is an all-in-one equity planning, financing, liquidity, personal finance, and secondary markets platform for startup executives and employees. EquityBee is more marketplace-led, connecting employees with investors who can fund their stock option exercise. ESO Fund is a direct non-recourse funding provider that may be more flexible for employees at earlier-stage startups or employees looking for liquidity against private shares or vested RSUs.
Secfi is likely the best fit for later-stage startup employees who want funding to exercise their stock options and support with the wider equity decision. Alongside non-recourse financing, Secfi offers equity planning tools, Maeve AI equity assistant, 1:1 guidance from licensed equity strategists, liquidity solutions, personal finance support, secondary market support, and company-wide equity education programs.
We think you should compare stock option financing offers based on more than headline fees. Look at how much you’d owe under different exit scenarios, whether the terms are agreed upfront, what happens if your company never exits, how much upside you keep, whether taxes and AMT are covered, what equity types are supported, and whether the provider can help with planning, liquidity, and personal financial decisions before you commit.
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