Post by Nicholas Sando

European IPOs hit a record low last year: just 19 venture-backed companies went public in 2025. That's left a lot of founders, employees and early investors sitting on real value with no obvious way to realise it. I spoke to Tech Funding News for their piece on the fast-growing $226bn secondary market, and shared a view I feel strongly about: Europe still lacks a genuinely founder-friendly venture secondaries fund. Too often, secondary investors here anchor to the last round and apply a standard discount, rather than underwriting a company's actual growth and fundamentals. That can penalise profitable start-ups who simply haven't raised recently. At Molten Ventures we're trying to do it differently, bringing a primary investor mindset to secondaries. We go deep on the business, price it on the merits, and help founders and early backers take some chips off the table without forcing a premature exit. It pains us to see a great European company sell too early. Europe builds world-class companies. They deserve a secondaries market that backs them properly. Grateful to Sofia C. and Tasmin Lockwood for the thoughtful piece. Link in the comments. #VentureCapital #Secondaries #Europe #MoltenVentures