Hello there, and happy first week of January ✨
The year has just begun, inboxes are slowly waking up again, and if 2025 taught us anything, it’s that liquidity is no longer something investors “wait for.” It’s something they actively design for. And as all eyes turn to Venezuela following this weekend’s developments, it serves as a reminder that political risk, capital controls, and sudden regime changes can reprice assets overnight and fundamentally influence exit assumptions. Needless to say, our thoughts are with the people of Venezuela during this bittersweet period of uncertainty.
In the first days of 2026, it feels like the right moment to step back and reflect on what really changed last year, and what that means going forward. As exits stayed slow and portfolios aged, the conversation shifted. Secondaries stopped being about distress and started being about timing and realism.
Here are the themes that defined secondaries in 2025, shaped by the insights of our guests and the conversations we hosted throughout last year.
Liquidity Is No Longer Optional
One of the most significant changes in 2025 was the widespread adoption of secondary transactions across both private equity and venture capital.
With IPOs delayed and M&A activity still uneven, the old assumption that everyone could simply wait for a clean exit has broken down. Holding periods are stretching far beyond what founders, early employees, angels, and even VCs initially expected.
As Rando Rannus from Siena Secondary Fund pointed out, waiting it out is no longer a realistic strategy for many stakeholders. Secondaries have stepped in to fill that gap, providing liquidity without forcing companies into premature exits.
What’s changed most isn’t just deal volume, but attitude. Selling part of a position is no longer seen as a red flag or a loss of conviction. Instead, it’s increasingly viewed as smart, disciplined portfolio management.
VCs are using secondaries to return capital to LPs while staying exposed to their strongest companies. Founders and employees are accessing liquidity without destabilizing the cap table.
From “Who Needs Liquidity?” to “Who Doesn’t?”
In 2025, the seller universe had expanded. LPs are no longer turning to secondaries only when they’re backed into a corner. Instead, they’re using them deliberately: to rebalance portfolios, smooth out vintage exposure, and recycle capital into new opportunities. With exits still slow and distributions lagging, secondaries have become a planning tool, not a pressure valve.
On the GP side, the momentum behind GP-led transactions continued to build, but for a different reason. Funds weren’t rushing to exit assets; they wanted more time with their best ones. As Ricardo Miró-Quesada of Arcano Capital has noted, continuation vehicles are increasingly used to generate DPI for LPs while allowing managers to keep compounding value in top-performing companies.
In that sense, secondaries have evolved into a bridge between patience and practicality, offering liquidity without forcing hard exits, and flexibility without giving up long-term upside.
Quality Over Optical Discounts
Another strong theme was a growing sophistication in pricing, with greater skepticism toward headline discounts.
Several guests made this point from different angles, including Matt Russell, Investment Director at VenCap, and Rafaël Le Saux, Director in Valuation & Modelling Advisory at PwC Luxembourg. They both agreed that a big discount doesn’t automatically make a deal attractive.
This is especially true in venture, where last-round valuations often lag reality. A modest discount on a conservatively marked, high-quality portfolio can be far more compelling than a large headline discount on weak, overvalued, or stale assets. As a result, investors are spending less time anchoring to NAVs and more time underwriting the actual companies underneath.
That change is pulling secondaries closer to fundamental investing—and further away from opportunistic trading driven by optics rather than substance.
Venture Secondaries Are Still Early, and That’s the Opportunity
Compared to private equity, venture secondaries are still small, but that’s exactly why so many investors are leaning in now. With trillions of dollars in unrealized venture value and exits pushed further out, secondaries offer faster duration, better visibility, and exposure to companies that have already proven themselves.
As Matt Russell pointed out, venture capital is still a power-law game, and secondaries are one of the most efficient ways to increase exposure to the winners without waiting a decade.
2025 felt like the year when venture secondaries stopped being “experimental” and started being intentional.
Stay Tuned With 0100 in 2026!
Secondaries are now a core part of how private markets work, and the conversations around them are becoming more open, more practical, and far more strategic. From liquidity planning and valuation discipline to GP-led deals, venture secondaries, and the role of long-term capital, we’ll keep breaking down what’s really changing and why it matters.
Throughout 2026, we’ll continue these discussions through candid conversations with GPs, LPs, secondaries specialists, family offices, founders, and operators who are actively shaping this market, not just observing it.
If you want to stay close to these insights and get our latest interviews, podcasts, and deep dives as they’re released, make sure to subscribe to 0100 Weekly Brief. We have many more in-depth conversations on secondaries and private markets coming this year, and we’d love to have you with us.