The venture secondaries market has been on the same roller-coaster ride as the broader VC market over the past few years, but it looks poised to break away in 2023.
Like venture capital as a whole, the secondaries market was hot in 2021 as a bunch of new players — sound familiar? — entered the space as crossover investors and traditional VCs forayed into buying secondary stakes as a way to get into hot deals they couldn’t access primary shares in. As the market turned in 2022, secondary deals quieted to the same volume as their venture counterparts amid mismatched valuations and expectations.
But while it’s unclear if the venture market has reached its bottom — some investors think it has, while others fear the worst is yet to come — secondary deals are breaking away. Data shows that transactions started to pick back up again in the second half of 2022, and multiple investors think 2023 could turn into a great year.