Secondary Market

Secondaries are increasingly serving as a primary exit route.

Private capital is harder to move than ever. EVIDENT moves it. We are a principal buyer in the secondary market, and we run the digital infrastructure that makes private positions liquid in the first place: capital on one side, a market built for liquidity on the other.

01
The shift

Many high-growth companies are choosing to remain private significantly longer.

For most of the last century, the way out of a private investment was an IPO or a sale. Today the most valuable companies stay private for a decade or more, and those windows open late and unpredictably. The secondary market has become the principal route for capital to exit private markets.

This is structural, not cyclical. As long as companies stay private longer, the need to move capital between investors only grows.

02
The measure

DPI is becoming a highly critical metric for modern investors.

Performance used to be measured on paper, by IRR. Investors now ask a harder question first: how much capital have you actually returned? DPI, distributions to paid-in capital, has become the measure that matters most.

With traditional exits slow, the secondary market is how managers answer it, returning capital without waiting for an IPO that may be years away. While companies stay private longer, that pressure only builds.

03
The need

Every holder is now a potential seller.

The demand for liquidity is structural, and it sits on every side of the market.

Limited partners
Under pressure to return capital, LPs sell fund positions to rebalance portfolios and meet their own distribution needs.
GPs and managers
With exits slow, managers turn to continuation vehicles and single-asset deals to return capital and hold their best assets longer.
Employees and founders
Paper-wealthy and cash-poor after years inside a private company, they need orderly, company-sanctioned liquidity without waiting for an IPO.
Funds rebalancing
Investors trim, rotate, and rebalance private exposure as mandates, vintages, and conditions change.
$233B
Secondary transaction volume in 2025, up 53% on the year.
$327B
Record dedicated secondary capital available to buy.
~90%
Of NAV, where quality LP portfolios now price, recovered from the deep discounts of 2022 and 2023.

Sources: Lazard, 2025 Secondary Market Report; Jefferies, Global Secondary Market Review (2025).

04
How we solve it

We work on two levels.

We address this in two ways at once. On the first level, we are a principal in the secondary market as it works today: a buyer with capital and a network of demand. On the second, and the one that matters more over time, we run the infrastructure that changes how the market itself works.

01

Counterparty

We buy positions today, with our own capital and a network of private-wealth demand.

02

Infrastructure

We run the digital market that makes those positions liquid in the first place.

05
01Level one

We are the counterparty.

When a position needs to move, EVIDENT is the buyer. We commit our own capital, and we bring demand that the institutional market cannot reach: family offices, external asset managers, and private banks seeking private exposure they could not otherwise reach. Our AI-driven request-for-quote system reaches the whole market to surface real buyers and real prices; where market liquidity is constrained, we may facilitate transactions as a principal counterparty, subject to our strict conflict of interest policies and best execution duties.

We come to you, and run the process end to end.

1
Introduction
A holder brings a position seeking liquidity, whether an LP, a manager, an employee, or a founder.
2
Price and buyer
EVIDENT runs the search and finds the buyer, or steps in directly with its own capital.
3
Transaction handled
Structuring, escrow, flow of funds, settlement, and administration, managed end to end.
4
Standing counterparty
Once onboarded to the asset, EVIDENT stays in place.
5
Open line
The next seller transacts with a name the asset already knows, with no new onboarding.
Onboarded once, ready for repeat business.
06
02Level two

Liquidity becomes part of the asset.

The deeper change is the infrastructure underneath. When a security is brought onto EVIDENT, it is on-ramped to a digital market: its record, its ownership, and its transfers all live on one system, on a shared ledger with an AI layer over the top.

From that point, liquidity is no longer arranged deal by deal. It becomes a property of the asset itself. Discovery, pricing, clearing, and settlement run on the same infrastructure and reach the whole market, so a position can change hands faster, at lower cost, and more often.

More efficiency means more liquidity. The easier a position is to find, price, and settle, the more readily it changes hands, and the deeper the market in that asset becomes. That is the part that compounds.

See the infrastructure underneath
07
Why EVIDENT

A clean market, not a gray one.

Private secondaries have long run through a gray market of opaque vehicles, layered fees, and prices disconnected from reality. EVIDENT is the opposite.

Every transfer is legal and permissioned, structured as a regulated security, and priced through a competitive process. Clean price discovery, transparent terms, and a counterparty that stands behind the transaction.

EVIDENT operates as a licensed broker-dealer with a separately licensed administrator. See how we are built.

Get in touch

Bring us a position to move.

If you are an LP, GP, manager, or founder with a private position to sell, or an investor seeking secondary exposure, we would welcome the conversation.

partners@evident.capital
Risk warning

Private market investments and secondary market transactions involve a high degree of risk, are highly illiquid, and are subject to the total loss of invested capital. Past performance metrics (including DPI or IRR) are not indicative of future results. Services are only available to Professional Investors as defined under the Securities and Futures Ordinance.