Wall Street Meets Silicon Valley

In the past month, major Wall Street institutions entered the VC secondaries space with a wave of acquisitions.

Charles Schwab acquired Forge for $660M and Morgan Stanley bought EquityZen, both leading secondary marketplaces. In addition, Goldman Sachs acquired Industry Ventures for $965M, a pioneer in venture secondary investing and early-stage hybrid funds.

What is driving this wave of acquisitions?

* Market size: The US venture secondary market is enormous — $95B in annual value, with $80.3B in direct secondary transactions and $14.6B in GP-led deals (PitchBook, as of Sep 30, 2025). For context, all of Latin America attracts only about $3B in annual VC investment

* Representative relative to other VC exit paths: Secondary transactions are now comparable in scale to traditional exits — $107B in acquisitions and $105B in public listings

* Strong growth: Direct secondary transactions have been growing at ~30% annually

* The beginning of the AI supercycle: This new cycle is creating exceptional investment opportunities — something we’ve seen firsthand as pre-IPO investors in Palantir

Conclusion

After seven years working in the US VC secondary market, it’s gratifying to see the space becoming mainstream.

And congratulations to Andrew (Forge) and Phil (EZ) — a job well done.