The Secondaries Playbook: What LPs Need to Know Now
Inside the LP Room by Council Capital
The Secondaries Playbook: What LPs Need to Know Now
We're back with our next edition of Inside the LP Room, which was created to give our community an inside look at the founders we believe in, themes we're tracking across our portfolio, and important LP educational topics.
Secondaries have become one of the hottest - and least understood - topics in early-stage investing. Funds are structured as 10-year vehicles, but average time to exit now stretches closer to 13 years - a gap that's pushing more LPs to look at secondaries as a pressure valve for liquidity long before a traditional exit. At the same time, secondaries have picked up a bit of a bad reputation, with multi-layered deals, stacked carry, and inflated fees showing up around hot names. Understanding how a clean secondary transaction actually works - and what to watch out for - has never mattered more.
The Council is partnering with Shriram Bhashyam, COO of Sydecar, to break down how secondaries work in practice.
Who Should Attend? LPs, angels, and operators navigating or curious about secondaries — many of whom are already using Sydecar's platform through deals run at Council Capital.
What We'll Cover:
What secondaries are, and why even sophisticated LPs and angels still misunderstand them
How a secondary transactions actually works
What to watch for amid the recent noise around stacked fees and multi-layered SPVs
Why early-stage GPs - not just mega funds - increasingly create an intentional secondary strategy
How LPs can use secondaries to lean into winners early, ahead of an eventual exit
Where the secondaries market may be headed in the next 12 months
Speakers:
Shriram Bhashyam is the COO of Sydecar, overseeing product, strategy, and go-to-market functions. He brings over two decades of experience across finance, law, and technology. Prior to Sydecar, he co-founded EquityZen, a leading marketplace to buy and sell shares of private companies.
Shri has also been Co-Head of Business Development at Forge Global, where he was on the leadership team through its growth phase and public listing on the NYSE, and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Citi Ventures. Earlier in his career, he was a securities attorney at Shearman & Sterling LLP, a leading global law firm. In his spare time, Shri enjoys tennis, gardening, and Legos.Amber Illig is the General Partner at Council Capital, where she invests in B2B software companies focused on essential industries such as manufacturing, legal, and healthcare. Her experience in operations leadership at companies like Eli Lilly, Apple, Snap, and Cruise sparked her passion for angel investing. As a co-founder of The Council Angels, a community of 200+ tech operators, Amber successfully made 30 personal angel investments, which paved the way for her to raise Fund I. With her extensive background as both an operator and an investor, Amber is dedicated to helping tech leaders navigate their own paths into LP & angel investing.
👋 About Us
Council Capital is an operator-led venture firm investing in First Builders transforming our most essential industries like manufacturing, legal, and healthcare as part of Software's Third Act. We also run an exclusive angel group and podcast for top operators, designed to inspire and attract the founders of tomorrow's unicorns.