The math is stark. Global private equity is sitting on over a trillion dollars of mature portfolio value with no clean path to realization. Strategic M&A is thinner than expected. IPO windows are open intermittently and only for a narrow band of companies. The residual is being managed through a market that barely existed a decade ago: secondaries.

For LP-led secondaries, the volume is doubling on two-to-three-year cycles, as institutional LPs rebalance portfolios in real time rather than waiting for GP distributions. Pension funds, insurance companies, and endowments are increasingly comfortable with secondary discounts in the high-single-digits as a normal cost of liquidity, where ten years ago that pricing implied distress. For GP-led secondaries — continuation vehicles, single-asset structures, and strip sales — the market has gone from a niche workaround to the dominant exit path for best-in-class fund assets that need more time, more capital, or both, to reach their full value.

For GPs launching their next fund, the implication is that secondaries fluency is no longer optional. LPs now underwrite it as a core competency, and the GPs who can demonstrate a track record of well-priced, well-governed continuation vehicles — with proper third-party fairness opinions, aligned LPAC consent processes, and clear roll-over economics — close fundraises at premium terms. For LPs, the opportunity is to build dedicated secondaries teams, partner with specialist counsel, or co-invest selectively alongside lead secondary buyers — each of which compounds information advantage that traditional primary commitments cannot.

For founders inside continuation vehicles, the dynamic is different again: the existing GP has new capital and a fresh hold-period mandate, but also a higher cost basis and an explicit timeline to realization. That should reshape the operating plan, the management incentive structure, and the priorities for the next twenty-four months.

Brilwood's Capital practice is built around this new default. Our Secondaries offering covers LP and GP secondaries, continuation vehicles, and structured liquidity for early employees and angels.