Exit Wounds

The fever on the tariff “crisis” appears to have broken, at least for now. As of Thursday, the S&P500 is +2% for the week (Bloomberg). Since “Liberation Day” on 4/2 the SP500/Nasdaq100 are now -1%/+1%. Our NPM Private Market Tracker*, which shows the estimated average price performance of the 170 largest names in our internal Tape D® data, is +1%.

The inspiration for this weekly is a perhaps overlooked story from my alma mater, Yale University, which is considering selling $6bn in private equity stakes due to the cloudy outlook for federal funding (Yale Daily News 4/22). Harvard University followed suit with an announcement on 4/25 that it would be selling $1bn in private equity investments (The Harvard Crimson). Why is this relevant? Our point is not related to the relationship between the administration and higher education. Rather, we found this interesting because we believe the institutional secondary sale of large private equity stakes speaks to the heightened uncertainty around the exit environment for PE and VC backed companies.

According to Bain & Co the private equity industry broadly is sitting on $3.2 trillion in unsold assets, as the two main exit channels, IPOs and sales, have both faced headwinds. Policy uncertainty can have many negative consequences for economic decisions, including a potentially cloudier earnings outlook. This factor makes exits even more difficult at a time when private fund LPs were already starved for distributions. As a result, we believe secondary market liquidity solutions will continue to become more relevant for private investors. Accordingly, we have seen both volume and inquiry increase across our platform as trade tensions have mounted.

BIGGEST MOVERS AND TOPICAL NAMES

Based on our proprietary Tape D® data, the best performers in the private market since the 4/2 “Liberation Day” have been Anduril (+18% estimated share price performance), x.AI (+18%) and Crusoe Inc. (+11%).

MARKET LARGELY SHRUGGED OFF DISAPPOINTING 1Q GDP DATA

Preliminary 1Q25 GDP of -0.3% was released on Wednesday 4/30. This was a slight miss vs. expectations of a -0.2% contraction, which had been revised down from +0.4% a week ago. (Source: Bloomberg).

RECENT EVENTS

• The Trump administration announced that a first tranche of trade deals was “near” with a number of countries, including Japan, South Korea and India. (4/30; Bloomberg)
• The US and Ukraine announced a deal to allow US access to Ukraine’s natural resources. (4/30; Bloomberg)
• Microsoft shares rose 8% after the close Wednesday on stronger than expected earnings. (4/30; Bloomberg)
• Meta shares rose 6% after the close Wednesday on strong earnings. (4/30; Bloomberg)
• Ripple proposed to buy stablecoin rival Circle for $4-$5bn and had the offer rejected as “inadequate.” (4/30; Bloomberg)

NOTABLE CAPITAL RAISES

• xAI is in talks to raise $20bn at a $120bn valuation (4/28; StrictlyVC)
• Startup Nscale is trying to raise $2.7bn,, including $1.8bn of private credit, to build out AI infrastructure in Norway. Nscale competes with Coreweave and counts Tik Tok owner Bytedance as its anchor customer. (Bloomberg)

NOTABLE EXITS

• DoorDash has offered to buy London-based Deliveroo for ~$3.5bn. (4/24; Bloomberg)Palo Alto Networks is acquiring three year old startup Protect AI for approximately $500mm. (4/28; StrictlyVC)