Ben Black is the co-founder and managing director of Akkadian Ventures, a pioneering secondary investor with a career spanning over two decades in venture capital. With a track record of building innovative investment strategies and founding the Raise Global Summit, he offers unparalleled insights into secondaries, fund management, and the evolution of the venture ecosystem. In this episode, he shares his journey from early-stage investing to creating one of the most respected platforms for emerging managers, and what he’s learned from decades in the game.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:55 Ben’s early VC journey and Round Zero origins
03:28 Breaking into venture at Rosewood Capital
04:45 Launching New Cycle Capital and early seed fund challenges
06:55 LP default during the credit crisis—and how he turned it into a win
08:22 Why Ben left seed investing and turned to secondaries
10:46 The first secondary deals: DocuSign, Splunk, and a 6.5x DPI
12:16 Building Akkadian Ventures to scale small secondary deals
14:06 The evolution from SPVs to a $300M fund
17:06 How Akkadian works with founders, CFOs, and companies
20:22 The profile of companies Akkadian invests in
22:42 Advice for fund managers: liquidity, DPI, and when to sell
26:03 How to sell positions: rofers, timing, and GP strategies
29:35 Navigating company permissions and secondary deal mechanics
33:01 What’s happening in the secondary market today
35:10 Pricing discipline vs. hype in AI and SaaS
36:56 The MongoDB deal Ben regrets passing on
40:12 Portfolio theory: betting on trends vs. picking winners
42:44 Liquidity discipline: Ben’s 5x rule and early DPI
47:45 The power of recycling in fund strategy
51:01 Fund admin mechanics and returning capital to LPs
55:06 The story behind Raise Global Summit
57:30 How Raise grew into the leading LP-GP platform
59:57 What makes a great deck—and what LPs ignore
01:07:57 What GPs get wrong about LPs (and vice versa)
01:12:35 The future of Raise and the shift away from mega-funds
01:13:42 Closing thoughts and where to find Ben
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Follow Ben Black on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benblack/
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Visit Our Website: https://www.teamignite.ventures
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