Akkadian Ventures

Akkadian Ventures is a San Francisco-based direct secondary investment firm founded in 2010 by Benjamin Black and Peter T. Smith, with $781 million in assets under management raised across four funds, including Fund IV at $128.8 million. The firm specialises in providing liquidity to early employees and investors of venture-backed businesses before a company reaches a public exit, completing more than 750 transactions to date. Co-Founder and Managing Director Benjamin Black, a Cornell Law graduate, leads the firm alongside Managing Director Ross Connelly and Partner Angela Stanley. Akkadian offers a range of customised liquidity solutions, including company-sponsored liquidity programmes, option exercise loans, direct secondaries, fund liquidity solutions, LP interests, and portfolio programmes with check sizes of $10 million to $50 million. The firm employs a proprietary data-driven methodology to identify private technology companies entering hyper-growth, effectively pre-approving companies for liquidity programmes. Its portfolio spans 48 companies, including 13 unicorns, 7 IPOs, and 12 acquisitions. Notable names include Navan, Uber, Palantir, DocuSign, RingCentral, Apptio, and BigPanda. Akkadian's focus is squarely on speed, tax efficiency, and rigorous confidentiality — attributes that matter enormously to employees making consequential decisions about their equity. The firm operates additional offices in Denver and Las Vegas and is registered as an SEC investment adviser. Industries served span SaaS, fintech, cybersecurity, marketing technology, media, and education, with a primary concentration in enterprise and B2B software companies at the Series B and growth stages.