12 April 2024 – The past few years have seen an explosion of venture secondaries. Airtree Ventures is using the buzz a little differently than other firms, who have utilized it to grow their stakes in their most promising portfolio businesses.
Founded in 2014, the Sydney–based venture fund has been reducing its equity investments and obtaining cash from some of its most attractive ventures via company-led secondary sales. Australian unicorns such as Canva (last estimated at $40 billion), Immutable (valued at $2.4 billion), and LinkTree (valued at $1.3 billion) comprise the company’s portfolio.
Co-founder and partner Craig Blair of Airtree told TechCrunch that, like other venture capital companies, Airtree aims to provide investors with the highest possible returns.
Conclusion
Airtree invests in startups in the pre-seed and seed stages; while these businesses remain private for longer, they do not get money back as often as they would in a regular fund lifespan. According to Blair, Airtree began looking for other means of obtaining liquidity for some of its early investments in 2021.
