Let me ask you a question.
Why would a 150-year-old Wall Street bank — one that makes its bread and butter taking companies public — buy a venture capital firm that focuses on private startups?
It’s a head-scratcher. But it just happened. Last week, Goldman Sachs, the most powerful name on Wall Street, announced that it’s buying venture firm Industry Ventures for $1 billion.
And now, to answer the question about why this happened — and what it means for investors like you — let’s rewind for a second.
A Very Strange Acquisition
If you ask any venture capitalist, they’ll tell you straight out: VC firms almost never get acquired.
Venture firms are personality-driven partnerships with long, unpredictable timelines. They’re betting on big ideas that might take years to pan out — or flame out.
As Fortune recently quipped, “There are probably more visible comets in any five-year period than notable acquisitions of VC firms.”
And yet, Goldman just pulled the trigger on one. Why did it do such a thing?
Because the world is changing. And so is where the big money is being made.
A Fundamental Shift — From Public to Private
For more than a century, Goldman’s bread and butter has been taking companies public, or helping public companies grow their value.
IPOs, stock offerings, mergers — that’s how Goldman built its empire.
But today, things are different.
Today, companies are staying private longer than ever. In the 1980s, the average company went public after 4 years. By 2000, it was 8 years. Today? The number is 12 to 16 years.
That means the biggest jumps in a company’s growth — the hyperbolic business growth, the soaring increases in enterprise value — are happening before it hits the stock market.
And that’s exactly where Industry Ventures operates.
The Secondaries Game
Industry Ventures, founded in 2000, is a specialist in something called secondaries.
In plain English, that means buying and selling shares of private companies before they go public — from early investors, employees, or other funds that want to cash out.
For years, this was a quiet corner of the private markets. But now it’s booming.
As PitchBook just reported, trading volume for secondaries hit a record $162 billion last year, and could cross $200 billion by the end of 2025.
That’s explosive growth, and Goldman wants in. As its CEO David Solomon said in a statement, the secondary market is “rapidly expanding as companies stay private longer.”
Wall Street’s Wake-Up Call
Make no mistake — this isn’t just Goldman dipping a toe in. It’s an admission that the game has moved away from the public markets.
Despite Goldman Sachs being a top IPO underwriter and adviser, Solomon made headlines in January when he questioned startups’ desire to go public. “It’s not fun being a public company,” he said at Cisco’s AI Summit. “Who would want to be a public company?”
Think about it: there are half as many public companies in the U.S. today as there were 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the number of private, VC-backed startups has exploded.
For decades, Wall Street banks made their billions serving investors who played in the public stock markets. But as more and more of the action (and the profits) shifted into the private realm, even Goldman realized it needed a new playbook.
And now, it’s found one: secondaries.
As Emily Zheng, PitchBook’s senior VC analyst, wrote, “This acquisition is the first of its kind and signals the increasing importance of VC in propelling the growth of Wall Street banks.”
Why It Matters for You
When institutions like Goldman Sachs start chasing an opportunity, you can bet the smart money has already figured out where the next wave of profits will come from.
In this case, it’s not from IPOs. It’s from pre-IPO opportunities.
That’s where private investors are capturing the kind of upside that used to be reserved for public shareholders.
And with Goldman now calling secondaries a “secular growth opportunity,” you can see where the wind is blowing.
Our Mission at Crowdability
At Crowdability, our mission is simple:
To help everyday investors like you tap into the same kinds of opportunities that firms like Goldman are chasing: access to high-potential private companies, before they IPO.
Because that’s where the biggest opportunities are today. And that’s where the biggest returns will be tomorrow.
Happy Investing,
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
