As exit routes narrow, a concentrated secondary market leaves quality assets below €1 billion underserved.
-- European venture capital is under growing pressure to return capital. Consolidated DPI for the 2017 vintage stands at 0.28x at year eight, meaning less than a third of paid in capital has been distributed. Fewer than 10% of funds raised between 2017 and 2020 have returned meaningful capital to their LPs (Source: State of European Tech, Report 2025).
Supply on the secondary market is growing. IPO timelines have extended, strategic M&A has been less predictable, and funds raised between 2017 and 2019 are approaching the end of their term. As LPs weight realized returns more heavily, selling existing positions has become a practical route to liquidity.
Beyond continuation vehicles, managers increasingly turn to direct secondaries, the sale of individual stakes in venture backed companies. Once a niche tool, they have become a normal part of portfolio management. The question is no longer who is selling. It is who is not.
Yet the market that should absorb this supply is highly concentrated. In 2025, 86% of secondary capital flowed to just 20 companies, names such as SpaceX and OpenAI. Buyers compete for the same names at full valuations, while thousands of quality European companies below €1 billion in enterprise value see limited buyer competition and minimal advisory coverage.
The result is a structural gap. Sellers holding strong assets outside the top 20 struggle to find priced bids, and buyers looking for growth exposure at fair value have few places to source it. Pricing stays opaque, processes run slowly, and good companies trade at a discount that reflects illiquidity rather than fundamentals. That mismatch is exactly where advisory coverage is thinnest and where it matters most.
That gap is where Equione operates, a sell side M&A advisor for European late stage venture and growth secondaries in the €50 million to €1 billion enterprise value segment, below the unicorns. It gives sellers liquidity and buyers access to high quality assets. Learn more at equione.com.
Contact Info:
Name: Raphael Rohner
Email: Send Email
Organization: Equione
Website: https://equione.com/
Release ID: 89197988
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