Second Market -- Canary In The Coal Mine? Silbert Says Yes.
Activity on the auction site has spiked in the last 18 months because so many people -- venture capitalists, limited partners, employees of startups and others -- have their money tied up in illiquid assets and want out, said founder Barry Silbert, who spoke yesterday on Grant Thornton's conference call introducing their latest report on the long-term decline of U.S. IPOs. Second Market now has $25 billion worth of assets for sale and 5,000 participants, and Silbert expects the site to complete 2 billion transactions by the end of the year. Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley -- private companies that are unwilling or unable to go public -- are selling assets, including Facebook, eHarmony, Second Life, LinkedIn and Tesla Motors. There's more interest in Second Market from investors too, Silbert said, partly because secondary sales are the only way some of them can get in on these deals. So Benchmark, Accel, NEA, IVP and several other VCs and investment banks are shopping at Second Market.
