Distribution Bottleneck in Private Secondaries
Dan Akivis, senior associate at Expansion VC, on selling secondary and managing LP relationships
This line gets at the core bottleneck in private secondaries, distribution is still relationship driven instead of market driven. A broker is usually not bringing a live order book or broad discovery layer, they are calling people they already know and hoping one of them wants a block. That works for famous late stage names, but it breaks down fast for smaller positions and less visible companies where the right buyer may exist but sit completely outside the broker’s circle.
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In practice, the brokered market still looks more like real estate than public stocks. A broker takes a seller mandate, asks their network who wants exposure, and waits for bilateral matches. The main upgrade from newer platforms has mostly been speed and workflow, not true open liquidity.
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That is why discounts stay blunt. When buyers lack company data, they often default to a haircut off the last round price instead of underwriting the business from fundamentals. Dan Akivis describes buyers repeating the same discount logic even after a company raised a much higher round, which shows how weak price discovery can be.
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Platforms help with paperwork and cap table mechanics, but they do not automatically solve discovery. Several systems make transfer, SPV setup, or issuer approvals easier, yet the market still depends on who controls investor relationships and who the company trusts enough to let onto the cap table.
The direction of travel is toward more infrastructure and less pure brokering. The winners are likely to be the firms that combine trusted system of record, standardized vehicles, better pricing data, and tighter workflows, so private trading starts to feel less like a cold call chain and more like an actual market.