Ben Black on Why Venture Capital Is Broken, the Rise of Secondaries, and Taking VC Public
Benjamin Black, founder of Akkadian Ventures and Powerlaw Corp. (Nasdaq: PWRL), joins David Weisburd to discuss the structural breakdown of traditional 10-year venture capital funds and the rise of secondary markets. Black explains why mega-cap tech companies staying private longer demands new liquidity solutions, detailing how he structured a publicly traded closed-end fund under the 1940 Act to give retail and institutional investors evergreen access to elite private technology assets.
- Private tech companies now routinely stay private for 15 to 20 years, making the traditional 10-year venture fund structure obsolete. Read →
- Late-stage tech companies now stay private for decades with backing from sovereign wealth and mega-funds, locking out 90% of retail investors from top venture returns. Read →
- Traditional 10-year fund lifecycles force managers to spend peak deployment years fundraising rather than managing positions. Read →
- Launching a public closed-end fund under the Investment Company Act of 1940 requires up to 18 months of unpaid preparation before earning a dollar in management fees. Read →
- Benjamin Black launched Powerlaw Corp. (Nasdaq: PWRL) as a publicly traded 1940 Act closed-end fund to hold late-stage private tech companies without traditional multi-decade lockups. Read →
- Inflows from family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and platforms like Hiive and Forge eliminated historical secondary discounts on late-stage tech giants, pushing common stock prices to parity with preferred rounds. Read →