Liquidity Clusters Around Famous Names
Dan Akivis, senior associate at Expansion VC, on selling secondary and managing LP relationships
This is why private market liquidity clusters around a tiny set of famous names. Most venture backed companies between roughly $100 million and $500 million are too small to have a steady stream of buyer attention, but too mature for early investors to ignore liquidity needs. Without regular information, research coverage, or a clear market price, buyers default to broad discounts and sellers struggle to exit even strong positions.
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In practice, buyers spend their time on companies they can underwrite quickly. That usually means unicorns with well known investors, frequent rounds, and enough market chatter to piece together growth and price. Sub scale names have less of that surface area, so they get skipped rather than closely valued.
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The bottleneck is not just matching buyers and sellers, it is teaching a new buyer what the company actually is. Brokers and platforms can help execute paperwork, but they do not solve the core problem that most private companies do not publish enough information for an outsider to get comfortable taking a position.
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That creates a barbell market. Specialized secondary funds focus on the biggest late stage names where they can deploy real size and price risk tightly, while smaller venture positions often only move inside a new financing or tender. Everything in between is structurally undercovered.
The market is heading toward more structured liquidity, but it will likely start from the top down. As companies stay private longer, the winners will be the ones that pair secondary access with repeatable disclosure, so a $300 million company can be evaluated more like an investable asset and less like a rumor driven side deal.