Every few months at PEP name comes through that the rest of the market has not yet priced correctly yet. By the time everyone agrees it’s a great company, the price has already moved past the point where it’s a great deal. The window between those two moments is where the actual work happens, and it has less to do with access than you might think (access, after all, is at premium when “everyone” wants into the deal).

Secondary venture investing is harder than it looks. The asset class concentrates liquidity around a handful of genuinely great companies, which creates the illusion that picking winning secondaries is mostly about picking winning companies. It isn't. In practice, there are five distinct ways a secondary investment can go wrong. Each hurdle requires its own discipline to prevent. At PrePublic Equity Partners, our investment process is built around avoiding all five.