Seconda Private Markets

Relationship-led. Research-first. Brokerage for growing Secondaries in category-defining private tech. Join the @FrensSyndicate

[Lance Teren @LanceTeren]

QUANTUM COMPANIES HAVE BEEN BUILDING!

$INFQ opened two buildings this summer: a new global headquarters in Colorado in August, and a Chicago innovation center in July, alongside a $50M computing HQ at Illinois' quantum park.

PsiQuantum is anchor tenant of that same park, building the facility for its 100-cabinet, million-qubit machine on Chicago's South Side, while a twin site rises in Australia.

$XNDU is building "Inception," a 158,000 square foot quantum factory in Toronto, backed by $140M the Canadian government committed last week.

$IBM launched a $1B standalone quantum chip foundry in Albany, and is placing a Quantum System Two at the Chicago park.

$IONQ bought an entire chip foundry, SkyWater, for $1.8B, and runs the first dedicated quantum computer factory in the Seattle area.

ITS TIME TO BUILD.

[Seconda Private Markets @Seconda_PM]

$100B is the new $10B

It took SpaceX nearly 20 years to reach a $100B valuation

xAI: 2.3 years
Anthropic: 4.5 years
OpenAI: 8.3 years

The biggest tech companies are reaching public-market scale while still private

If investors want exposure, they need to look beyond public markets

[Seconda Private Markets @Seconda_PM]

Hugging Face investors are sharing ~$7.3bn of profits on <$400m invested. ~20x blended across all investors

Seed investors made 429x!

[Paul Bonnet @PaulBonnet]

Nvidia acquires Hugging Face for ~$12.9bn. But who gets the 💰? My usual breakdown below 👇

*Investors are sharing ~$7.3bn of profits on <$400m invested. A cool ~20x blended.*

*1) The single biggest winner here? Lux Capital.* 👑

Lux is taking the crown for the most $ returned in this transaction. The two rounds they led (Series A & Series C) generated ~$2.6bn combined. They also participated in the Series B.

Congrats to @wolfejosh and team. The $15.0m Series A alone will return ~132.5x the capital invested, or ~$2.0bn. The most lucrative round in absolute $ returned.

*2) Backing an exceptional team paid off with a >1,000x return for Betaworks and the angels* 📈

The story few people know: Hugging Face started life as a chatbot for lonely teenagers... You sent it a selfie and a sad emoji, it told you it understood. Quite far from where it landed!

That is why backing an exceptional team in @ClementDelangue, @Thom_Wolf and @julien_c is always the right thing to do. It paid over 1,000x for Betaworks, Kevin Durant and Thibaud Elziere.

*3) Founders and team are crushing it: not taking too much dilution along the way paid off* 👏

I estimate they will share ~$5bn in proceeds, assuming no secondary was taken along the way. A life changing outcome for them and many employees.

Taking a 15% attributed option pool at exit, this would mean ~$2bn for the team and >$3bn to share for the three co-founders. Legendary!

*4) Salesforce Ventures is cementing its reputation as one of the very best corporate VCs.* 🥇

Salesforce is adding Hugging Face to its long list of successful exits: Snowflake, Zoom, DocuSign, nCino, Auth0... Very few investors can claim as many successes, let alone corporates.

The $235m round they led returned $675m in just three short years. Meanwhile, Salesforce's own stock has been flat for the period. Capital well invested!

*5) This is a little bit of a heartbreak: but I wanted to congratulate @joinstationf here:*

Hugging Face walked into StationF as a 4-person team on day one, June 2017. Back when it was a chatbot for teenagers. They went through multiple corporate programs (Microsoft, Ubisoft, then Naver). Unfortunately they were not investing or taking equity at the time - but they contributed to making it possible. And so for that: hats off.

And of course, congratulations to all others involved: Addition, Sequoia, Coatue and many others. No one will be left out!

[Seconda Private Markets @Seconda_PM]

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• Group of 800+ founders, operators, and family offices investing side by side via US-reg SPV structure

• Free access to the Syndicate

• One of the lowest fees on the market

[Seconda Private Markets @Seconda_PM]

We're Seconda Private Markets, a research-driven brokerage for secondaries in category-defining private tech: quantum, AI, robotics, defense, space, and semiconductors.

SecondaPM deals are selective by design: we only work with companies where we see real potential, a clear way in and out. We secure allocations before they hit the broader market at price that makes sense.

There are 2 ways to collaborate 🧵

[Seconda Private Markets @Seconda_PM]

Brokerage

• Top-tier names, sourced through our internal supply and a network of 100+ brokerage partners, backed by some of the lowest fees on the market (starts from 0% on the buy side)

• Custom sourcing on demand, fast liquidation of deals, both fee-on-success only

• Global coverage, with a presence in New York, Lisbon, Australia, and Asia