Liquidity Reimagined: Tender Offers, SPVs, and the Venture Secondary Surge

With transaction value reaching $112 billion in Q1 2026, venture secondaries are scaling to rival IPOs and acquisitions. Rising institutional adoption and an ongoing need for liquidity are turning secondaries into core market infrastructure, with the potential to become a new industry standard and reshape the flow of capital.

In this webinar, Emily Zheng, PitchBook’s Senior VC Analyst, and our panel of industry experts examined the cause of these shifts and what they mean for the future of venture secondaries.

To download the presentation slides and watch the recording, please fill out the form.

Key topics

How anticipated IPOs from SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic mean short-term disruption and long-term opportunity
Tender offers as a tool for talent acquisition and cap table management, and why leading startups are making them standard practice
The SPV crackdown and red flags to avoid

Featuring

Emily Zheng
Senior Research Analyst, Venture Capital
Emily Zheng is a senior research analyst at PitchBook, where she covers major trends and evolving themes in US venture capital through quarterly core reports and thematic analyst notes. Prior to this role, Zheng was a private banker at J.P. Morgan, where she provided wealth management solutions and advice to affluent individuals, families, endowments, and foundations throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Zheng received a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in Public Policy Analysis and Economics from Pomona College. She also holds the Securities Industry Essentials, Series 7, Series 63, and Series 65 licenses. She is based in PitchBook’s Seattle office.
Larry Aschebrook
Founder & Managing Partner, G Squared

Larry Aschebrook founded G Squared in 2011 in response to a fundamental shift: venture-backed companies are staying private longer and need both primary capital to fund growth and transitional capital to provide liquidity to early investors, employees, and other shareholders. Under his leadership, G Squared has deployed over $5B in 160+ portfolio companies, focused on growth-stage technology companies. He is a leading voice in private secondary markets and has been featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, and more.
David Laroque
Managing Director Co-Head of European Secondaries Private Capital Advisory, Stifel

David Laroque is a Managing Director in Stifel’s Private Capital Markets Group specializing in direct secondaries and based in Paris. He joined Stifel through its 2025 acquisition of Bryan, Garnier & Co. In addition to his role at Stifel, he is the Co-Founder and CEO at NotSoLiquid, a dedicated venture secondary boutique. David began his career at Rothschild & Co and co-founded Leuwen, a boutique specializing in fundraising, M&A, and debt financing for tech firms. He holds a master’s in corporate finance from EDHEC and an MBA from London Business School.