A decade of record venture fundraising produced a cohort of companies that never listed. The capital went in; the exits did not follow. What is left is a large population of valuable private positions held by founders, employees, early backers and funds approaching the end of their lives — and a market that has grown up to price them.
Malcolm Ferguson is a Partner at Molten Ventures and a member of its dedicated secondaries team, which acquires stakes in mature private European technology companies. It is a vantage point with an unusual property: secondary buyers have to put a number on assets whose carrying values were set elsewhere, often some time ago, which makes them among the more candid observers of what private technology is actually worth. Ahead of the UK Family Office Summit Oxford 2026, he sets out how that market is behaving and what he thinks investors should ask before accessing it.
Please introduce yourself, your organisation and your role.
I am Malcolm Ferguson, a Partner at Molten Ventures, one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms. I sit within our dedicated secondaries team, which we established to expand what Molten has been doing successfully for years: acquiring stakes in mature, high-quality private technology companies and portfolios, and providing liquidity to early shareholders, founders, employees and funds. I have spent almost twenty years in and around European technology investment, more than a decade of it as a venture investor, so I have seen the ecosystem develop from both the primary and the secondary side.
What does your organisation do, and how does it support family offices, wealth owners, institutional investors or the wider private capital community?
Molten Ventures invests in Europe’s most ambitious technology companies, from Series A through to the growth stages, across themes with powerful structural drivers such as artificial intelligence, fintech, cybersecurity, quantum computing and space technology. We manage more than £2 billion in assets and our history includes backing some of Europe’s best known companies, including Revolut, Trustpilot and UiPath.
For family offices and wealth owners, we offer several routes into an asset class that is otherwise hard to access. As a listed company, our shares provide liquid exposure to a diversified portfolio of private European technology. Beyond that, our secondaries strategy allows sophisticated investors to partner with us in acquiring positions in proven, later-stage companies, often at attractive entry points and with shorter expected paths to liquidity than traditional early-stage venture. We see ourselves as a bridge between Europe’s private technology champions and the investors who want exposure to them.
What are the biggest opportunities and challenges currently shaping your sector?
The defining feature of our market right now is the structural shortage of liquidity. Companies are staying private for longer, IPO windows remain selective, and a decade of record venture fundraising has left early investors, employees and founders holding valuable but illiquid positions. That imbalance has made secondaries one of the fastest growing areas of private markets: global secondary volumes set new records in the first half of 2026, and in venture, secondary transaction value has for the first time overtaken public listings as a source of liquidity.
The opportunity is to be a trusted, well-informed buyer in that market. The challenge is discipline. Bid-ask spreads can be wide, information is imperfect, and pricing stale valuation marks correctly requires real underwriting. This is where a platform like Molten’s has an advantage: twenty years of relationships and proprietary knowledge across the European ecosystem means we are often buying into companies and portfolios we already know well.
What trends do you believe will have the greatest impact on private wealth and private capital over the next five to ten years?
Three stand out. First, the continued migration of value creation from public to private markets. The most exciting growth companies are compounding privately for a decade or more before any public listing, so investors who are not present in private markets are missing a large share of returns. Second, the maturing of secondaries from a niche tool into a permanent, structural pillar of private capital, spanning direct stakes, portfolio purchases, tender offers and GP-led transactions. For newer entrants, secondaries also mitigate the J-curve, offering earlier visibility and earlier liquidity than blind pool primary funds. Third, the rise of European technology itself. Europe now produces globally significant companies in AI, fintech, defence and space at valuations that remain sensible relative to the United States, and I expect global private wealth to allocate accordingly.
"“The opportunity is to be a trusted, well-informed buyer in that market. The challenge is discipline.”"
What expertise or perspective are you looking forward to bringing to discussions at the UK Family Office Summit Oxford?
Practical, transaction level experience of European venture secondaries. There is a great deal of commentary about the secondary market, but relatively few people in Europe are pricing and executing these deals actively. I am looking forward to sharing how we source and underwrite opportunities, how discounts and valuations are really behaving beneath the headlines, and what separates a genuinely attractive secondary from a value trap.
What advice would you offer family offices, wealth owners or investors navigating today’s rapidly changing environment?
Stay invested in innovation, but be deliberate about how you access it. The technology cycle we are in, led by AI, is a generational one, and sitting it out is its own risk. At the same time, the era of easy markups is over, so quality of entry matters enormously. Secondaries can be a sensible way in: buying into proven companies with real revenue, at rational prices, closer to liquidity.
Prioritise managers with genuine information advantages and a demonstrated record of returning cash, not just marking up positions. Finally, plan for liquidity on the way in, not the way out. Understanding the realistic path to exit for every private position you hold is, in today’s market, the discipline that separates good outcomes from frustrating ones.
This article contains general information only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to invest. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Intended for sophisticated institutional and professional investors only.