The Secondary Market Boom

Opportunity or the Next SPAC Trap?

Everyone loves a liquidity story. And right now, the venture secondary market is telling a very compelling one.

Over the past year, the direct VC secondary market nearly doubled in value — from roughly $50 billion annualized in Q4 2024 to $91.7 billion by Q4 2025. Founders are selling. Employees are cashing out. Family offices are buying in. Platforms are multiplying. And the pitch is seductive: get exposure to the best private companies in the world — SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic — without waiting a decade for an IPO that may never come.

As LPs, this should feel familiar. Because we’ve seen this movie before.