The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled fraud charges against Adit Ventures Management, its founder Eric Munson and three partners over pre-IPO investments including Klarna and SpaceX, in a case alleging the firm misled investors and secretly profited at their expense. The SEC said the misconduct ran from April 2019 through December 2024 and centered on false claims used to raise money for funds focused on private technology and space companies. The regulator alleged Adit charged millions of dollars in undisclosed fees, took unsecured loans from funds on favorable terms without telling investors, and sold pre-IPO shares to client funds at marked-up prices while concealing the spread. In one example, the SEC said an investor committed about $15 million after being told a fund owned 32,000 Klarna shares that it did not actually hold. In another, Adit allegedly bought SpaceX shares at $420 each and sold them to a client fund at $498, pocketing an undisclosed $78-per-share markup. Founded in 2016, the New York-based adviser managed about $465 million in assets. Adit Ventures and the individual defendants agreed, without admitting or denying the allegations, to permanent injunctions and to pay disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties in amounts to be determined by the court. Munson denied wrongdoing, saying he settled only to avoid a prolonged legal fight, and separately agreed to a forthcoming associational bar with the right to seek reentry after three years. The case adds to a broader crackdown on the opaque pre-IPO market, where investor demand for exposure to private companies such as SpaceX and Anthropic has surged and regulators have raised concerns about special purpose vehicles and continuation vehicles that can obscure asset ownership and pricing.