E342: The Rise of Venture Secondaries

What if the real edge in venture isn’t picking the hottest companies, but structuring your portfolio, pacing capital, and building relationships in a way most investors never do? In this episode, I sit down with Jamie Melzer, Founder and Managing Partner of Altra Venture Partners, to break down how she built a firm focused on late-stage venture and secondaries at the height of market dislocation. We discuss why rising interest rates in 2022 created a rare entry point, how buying private tech companies at 40 to 80 percent discounts reshaped the opportunity set, and why transaction risk often matters more than company risk in secondary markets. Jamie explains her concentrated, power-law-driven portfolio strategy, how she sources deals in an opaque and relationship-driven ecosystem, and why access, not awareness, is the true barrier in private markets.