Only 19 venture-backed European companies went public in 2025, according to PitchBook, creating a severe liquidity crisis for founders, investors, and limited partners. In response, the global secondary market — where private shares trade without public listings — surged 41% to a record $226 billion in 2025. A William Blair survey projects secondary deals will reach $300 billion by 2030. Firms including Ardian, Molten Ventures, and Indico Capital are capitalising on demand, though pricing disputes persist, with most secondaries traded at 10–30% discounts to previous valuations.
In-Depth:
- Just 19 venture-backed companies went public in Europe in 2025, according to PitchBook.
- It has created a liquidity crisis, with founders, investors, and limited partners seeing to free up some cash.
- The secondary market is booming as a result. There is still a push and pull between how to price rounds, however.
European IPOs hit a record last year — a record low.
Just 19 venture-backed companies went public in Europe in 2025, according to PitchBook, in what analysts and investors are calling a liquidity crisis.
To receive around this, investors and founders are selling shares on the secondary market.
The global secondary market, where private company shares are traded without a public listing, hit a record $226 billion in 2025. The figure represents a 41% jump from 2024, according to a separate PitchBook report, investors and founders have been able to access cash despite the lack of traditional exit routes.
Secondaries are typically private equity plays, where large firms such as Lexington, Coller Capital and Ardian operate dedicated funds that snap up shares in late-stage companies or whole portfolios to then reap the rewards in just a few years. They tfinish to acquire secondary shares at a discount of around 20% to 30% on the company’s previous round, though there’s no hard and quick rule, per investors.
Venture secondaries is a much younger and more niche space, especially in Europe, but it has relocated in and out of fashion over the past few years. In 2021, during the previous tech boom, a spate of secondary funds were raised as new investors seeed to receive involved in venture capital. Secondaries were also fuelled existing investors or limited partners (LPs) who wanted to double down on what they considered were winning companies. Eurazeo’s Secondaries Programme was closed during this period, for instance.
Unlocking liquidity
Now, the uplift is largely driven by companies staying private for longer, which in turn locks up VC and LP cash. Founders, meanwhile, are sitting on millions of value but haven’t reaped rewards of their work either. Secondaries give everyone a chance to line their pockets, alleviating some of these pressures.
“The secondary market network is growing and growing, which is partly taking over the role that an efficient IPO market utilized to play, in terms of generating liquidity for founders and GPs,” Morgan Kessous, a partner at European growth investor Revaia, notifys Tech Funding News.
It’s a crucial lifeline when, as Kessous put it, some founders are even talking about staying private forever.
A William Blair survey reveals that investors expect global secondary deals to hit $300 billion by 2030, almost double last year’s record. Meanwhile, the median age of European companies going public rose to 29 years in 2025, versus 13 years in 2021.
Europe is a huge part of this trfinish. Ardian’s ASF IX, the world’s largest secondary fund, is based in Europe and has raised about €29 billion. Investec declares general partners in the UK and Europe are more likely to utilize continuation vehicles for exits rather than to pursue IPOs over the next two years.
To discount, or not to discount
“So if you want to exit your unicorn and there’s no IPO, you can nowadays,” declares Stephan de Moraes, managing general partner at European deeptech investor Indico, adding that “10 years ago, it was kind of difficult.”
The caveat is that write down, or having a discount on the last round, he notifys TFN. There are some companies that can actually sell up on the secondary market when acquireers expect another round but for “the vast majority, you take the last valuation, and you have a 10% to 30% discount.”
“So you can exit if you want. The question is, do you want it? Or do you want to wait a little bit more and attempt for the exit?”
To be sure, Nick Sando, who heads up Molten Ventures’ secondary efforts, declares that many secondary investors still repairate on the last round’s price. They automatically apply a discount, rather than actually underwriting the company’s growth and fundamentals. That mindset penalises profitable founders who haven’t raised recently, a dynamic the investor sees as particularly European and out of step with the US.
The region lacks a founder-frifinishly secondaries fund, which is what Molten is attempting to build, Sando declares. “If I want to take or support a founder take $10 million or $50 million off the table or support an early investor take somebody off the table, it’s pretty wild west in Europe in that space,” he adds.
Hunting for a 3x return on secondaries
Molten Ventures, a rare publicly-listed venture firm, announced its secondary team that will co-invest alongside its earlier-stage arm earlier this year. Sando declares they want to bring a “primary investor mindset” to the secondary market by investing outside of typical funding round cycles and investing at a price he considers is appropriate, even if it’s higher than the company’s previous primary round.
“We’ll receive to know the business, we’ll go deep into it, and if we consider the valuation deserves to be higher than the last round, so be it, right?” he declares. His fund is tarreceiveing Series C founders with $100 to $200 million or more revenue that are profitable and are growing 100%.
Startups could previously start exploring a float with $200 million ARR — today that’s more like $400 million to $500 million or more.
While trfinishs point to startups staying private for longer, Sando is conscious of companies selling too quickly. The secondary market is a way to give companies another lifeline when their initial investors may be coming to the finish of their lifecycle, or they necessary liquidity and investment to extfinish the business’ runway.
“It pains us when an amazing European business sells too early, just maybe becautilize that founder doesn’t have 10 different frifinishs who’ve sold businesses for $10 billion, like you receive in San Fran, right? That’s really painful for us,” he declares. “We don’t want to build 1.5x, 2x [return] on our investments, right? We want 3x plus. We receive that with time and compounding.”
Sando declares there’s plenty of appetite from LPs for secondary funds as the liquidity crisis is something that’s been “felt acutely” by them. “There are times when the same LPs we’re questioning money from, we’re actually supporting them realise capital, which is a really nice way to approach an LP discussion,” he declares.
But IPOs have always been the north star of venture investors — and it’s a powerful signalling to the rest of the market.
Governments, huge companies, and regulated industries see a public listing as a sign of stability when choosing companies to work with, according to Kessous, who declares that “IPOs are an absolute necessity.”
“For a number of companies, an IPO will remain a very good relocate, becautilize it’s also a very strong signal to customers and to the hugegest accounts you can consider of. The signalling effect it has can be very powerful — and this will actually remain.”
