AXIS Group Ventures’ Post

One key role of a #CFO is to create the financial flexibility to weather financial storms, capitalize on opportunities and deliver the strategy using the most appropriate #funding options. With economic uncertainty persisting and #capital markets still volatile, it’s helpful to learn about available financing options. Join our discussion on #venture debt and assess if it’s right for your business. #startups #scaleups #fundraising #womeninfinance

Blackstone Secures Over $22B for World's Largest Secondaries Fund 🌐💰 Global private equity titan, Blackstone, recently successfully garnered approximately $25 billion in commitments for its secondaries strategy, highlighting investors' anticipation for sustained liquidity amidst a challenging exit environment, reported PitchBook. 📈💼 1️⃣ Record-Breaking Fund Closure: Blackstone's Strategic Partners arm announced the closure of its Strategic Partners IX fund at a whopping $22.2 billion. This monumental fund is recognized as the industry's largest, dedicated to facilitating the offloading of assets by both limited and general partners on the secondary market. 🚀💵 2️⃣ Enhanced Investment Capabilities: Coupled with Blackstone's pre-existing $2.7 billion Strategic Partners GP Solutions vehicle, the firm now possesses significant resources under its Strategic Partners unit, managed by Verdun Perry. With total assets amounting to $67 billion, Blackstone is well-equipped to offer investors enhanced liquidity and diversification opportunities. 🌐💼 3️⃣ Increasing Importance of Secondary Strategies: With a challenging exit landscape characterized by reduced PE exits in the US and a nearly stagnant IPO market, secondary and GP-led continuation strategies are gaining prominence. These strategies provide alternative exit routes, enabling GPs to address investor demands for liquidity amidst prolonged asset retention due to inflation, geopolitical unrest, and market volatility. 📊🌍 4️⃣ Continuation Vehicles and GP-led Secondaries: Through continuation vehicles, GPs can maintain an asset by transitioning a prized asset from one fund to another. Such transactions offer flexibility, allowing LPs to liquidate on the secondary market while GPs retain assets, awaiting favorable market conditions for potential sales. 🔄💡 5️⃣ Industry Milestone: Blackstone's latest fund sets a new industry benchmark, surpassing France's Ardian, which closed its Ardian Secondary Fund VIII at $19 billion in 2020, according to PitchBook data. 🏆📈 Closing Thoughts: 🌟 As Blackstone solidifies its position with the industry's largest secondaries-focused fund, the firm underscores its commitment to navigating the evolving investment landscape and addressing investors' evolving needs for liquidity and diversification. The monumental success of the Strategic Partners IX fund further cements Blackstone's reputation as a global leader in private equity, adept at capitalizing on market opportunities and delivering value to its stakeholders. 💼 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #Blackstone #SecondariesFund #PrivateEquity #StrategicPartners #FundClosure #Investment #Liquidity #MarketTrends #venturecapital #IndustryMilestone

Commitments to secondaries continues growing with a buyer’s market with deal flow well in excess of dedicated capital. “LPs commit to secondaries funds because they see that this is a materially undercapitalised market,” says Jan Philipp Schmitz, executive vice-president at Ardian. Blackstone and Lexington Partners, each raised over $20 billion as the industry focuses on buying high-quality assets at compelling discounts.  For 3SPOKE it begs the question, if “high-quality” (i.e. largely buyout) assets is undercapitalized, then what does it look like for venture capital. The biggest factor seems to be investors’ valuation hangover concerns from the 2020/2021 period keeping them on the sidelines. https://lnkd.in/eZnEnFqV

Venture Capital News - Venture Capital News Headlines

The term "post-money valuation" describes the estimated market worth assigned to a start-up following the completion of a financing round from #angel or #venture #capitalists. #SolisCapitalandVentures #capitalventures #angelinvestors

Within the VC landscape, one of the interesting areas we are seeing more activity has been VC secondaries. This is where VC’s will sell stakes in companies or their entire VC portfolios. The increase in secondaries is likely driven by VC’s needing to generate liquidity for their LP’s. For buyers in the market, there are deals to be had. #secondaries #venturecapital #liquidity https://lnkd.in/gcET8U34

🚨📥📰 Our annual reports on the hottest new private debt and private equity managers are now online. The reports highlight the most anticipated startups that were announced/reported in 2023 and details the founders, strategies, and investors in these firms. Private debt emerging managers to watch 2024 [behind paywall]: https://lnkd.in/eqqguJa8 Private equity emerging managers to watch 2024: https://lnkd.in/ebrTCTFH Fantastic work from the whole private equity/credit team:  James Harvey, Naimish Keswani, Jacob Chilvers, Arushi Rajput, Janelle Bradley, Georgi Korovski, Connor Boylan, Randa Jumean and our newest recruit, Brandon Duffy. 🙌 We look forward to breaking all the biggest launches/spinouts in 2024. 🕵️♂️ #privatecredit #privatedebt #privateequity #privatemarkets #alternativeinvestment #alternatives

As VC funding continues to take a hit, what strategies are being employed by #assetowners in the private equity space ? Opportunistic buyouts , distressed sales , use of continuation vehicles, #gp led strategies - there is a lot going on in the #privateequity secondary space. Read views from Kerrine Koh (Hamilton Lane ), Dominic Goh (HarbourVest Partners ) and Effie Vasilopoulos ( Sidley Austin LLP ) in my latest coverage for AsianInvestor here. Emelda Then Joyce Chin Gon Yew Desmond Chua Yuri Okutsu https://lnkd.in/gXfYa6Tt #spinout #jointventures #secondarymarket #privatemarkets #assetallocation #alternativeinvestments #funding #customisedsolutions #rates #valueinvesting

Insights: European VC valuations largely survive 2023’s corrections 👇🏼 Correction. The word to summarize venture capital markets in 2023. However, despite the large declines across deal, exit, and fundraising value last year, median startup valuations ended with more resilience than perhaps expected. Still, valuation multiples compressed and top decile valuations significantly declined across most stages, according to PitchBook's 2023 annual European VC Valuations report #europe #venturecapital #valuations === Key takeways: ➡️ 2023 was a year of correction, while 2024 will be the year of the three Rs (rates, recovery, and rationalisation). ➡️ The proportion of venture deal value with nontraditional investor participation slightly declined in 2023, but several industry stakeholders continued to tap venture markets for nascent technologies. ➡️ Unicorn deal value unsurprisingly declined in 2023; however, the aggregate post-money valuation of active unicorns only slightly decreased.  ➡️ The median exit valuation sat at €23.0 million in 2023, down 28.7% YoY, with the median public listing valuation underperforming the median acquisition valuation. 👉 Full report: https://lnkd.in/eDmkGa2w Brought to you by: #pitchbook === ➡️ Deal readiness New State Ventures operates as an independent deal maker for software and technology-led businesses. We collaborate with high-growth companies, their founders and investors to drive deal readiness and transaction value in preparation for and execution of investments, acquisitions and exits. 👉 Contact: https://lnkd.in/eFAxZ9W #newstateventures #founders #investors #venturecapital #privateequity #dealreadiness https://lnkd.in/eG9k4XCv

4) Preference for Later-Stage Deals: Building on the previous points, there's an increasing inclination among LPs to gravitate towards pre-IPO rounds. These later-stage investments offer more concrete traction metrics, clearer product-market fit, and potentially shorter timelines to exit. This shift allows investors to mitigate some of the risks associated with earlier-stage investments while still participating in potentially high-growth opportunities. 5) So Many New Companies: I’m going to state the obvious here… it’s hard to pick the winners at seed with so many new companies being founded and resources out there to start companies. Alex Pattis SecondaryLink #secondariestakingoverforthe99to2000’s