Secondaries Best for Late-Stage Firms
Ani Banerjee, co-founder of Andromeda Group, on secondary diligence and companies staying private
This is really a screening rule for which private companies can tolerate more liquidity without blowing up the tradeoff that keeps them private. Once a company is close enough to IPO readiness, it already has cleaner metrics, a clearer equity story, and more reason to share limited financials with vetted buyers. Earlier companies still depend more on secrecy, rougher storytelling, and infrequent fundraising marks, so regular secondary trading creates more disclosure pain than strategic benefit.
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Late stage matters because the company is already building the muscles public investors expect. Regular reporting, board materials, KPI tracking, and a stable narrative make it much easier to disclose enough for price discovery without opening the kimono to every competitor.
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Advanced in the roadmap also means the business is no longer selling only a vision. Buyers can underwrite real revenue, margins, retention, and market position, which makes secondaries feel less like blind brokered bets and more like late stage public style investing.
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That is why issuer centric platforms focus on companies near an IPO, a direct listing, or durable multi billion dollar scale. They get the upside of price discovery, employee liquidity, and cap table refresh, while still keeping control over who buys, how often shares trade, and what gets disclosed.
Over time this pushes private markets toward a middle layer between fully private and fully public. The winners are likely to be companies mature enough to share disciplined disclosures, but still strong enough to value control over cap table composition, trading cadence, and when they finally step into the public market.