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Sign at office park for venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, Menlo Park, California, including ... More Bessemer Venture Partners, Signia Venture Partners, Montgomery and Hansen and Mitsui, November 14, 2017. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
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Venture capital isn’t dying. It’s evolving. Fast. What was once a high-risk, high-reward game of early-stage bets and long-shot unicorns is shifting into something more calculated and far more powerful. Today’s leading firms are no longer just hunting for the next breakout founder. They’re building empires. From Lightspeed to Thrive Capital to Sequoia, some of the biggest names in venture are quietly transforming into full-scale investment machines. They are adopting private equity playbooks, expanding into secondaries, launching evergreen funds, and acquiring real-world businesses. And with every move, they are redrawing the lines between venture capital, private equity, and institutional asset management.
Lightspeed’s decision to register as a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) marked a turning point. Under this structure, firms are no longer bound by the typical 20 percent cap on non-qualifying investments, which traditionally limited their ability to buy secondary shares, acquire public equities, or execute private equity-style buyouts. Now they can hold long-term positions, operate across asset classes, and pursue liquidity outside of IPOs or acquisitions. In short, they can act more like Blackstone with a product team. This model is already playing out. Andreessen Horowitz became an RIA in 2019, unlocking the flexibility to expand into crypto, wealth management, and late-stage investing. Sequoia reorganized its entire firm around a single evergreen structure. Thrive Capital raised a $1 billion vehicle to build and buy companies outright. And General Catalyst went even further, acquiring a hospital system and rebranding itself as a transformation company.
This evolution has created a new kind of problem: liquidity. As firms shift toward long-term ownership and private equity-style operations, they are encountering the same issue the traditional VC model faced: how to generate returns in a world where IPOs are scarce and acquisitions take time. The difference now is scale. Startups are staying private longer, valuations are ballooning, and secondary markets are expanding to fill the gap. In 2012, the secondary market for private shares was around $25 billion. This year, it is expected to surpass $100 billion dollars. Firms like Lightspeed are hiring Wall Street talent specifically to lead their secondary strategies. The message is clear: liquidity is no longer a hopeful outcome. It is an infrastructure layer. And the current system was not built for this level of demand.
This is where tokenization starts to make sense. If venture capital is now operating on private equity timelines, with evergreen funds, secondaries, and long-term control strategies, then it also needs new tools for liquidity, ownership, and transparency. Tokenized equity and on-chain cap tables offer the kind of flexibility that traditional structures struggle to provide. They allow firms to fractionalize ownership, create programmable vesting, and potentially unlock liquidity without waiting on a public exit. For employees and early investors, this could mean access to a real-time secondary market. For firms, it creates a new channel to manage positions, price discovery, and long-tail ownership. It is not about replacing existing infrastructure. It is about finally updating it to match the speed and complexity of what modern venture firms are becoming.
Andreessen Horowitz may have been early to crypto, but their strategy looks increasingly prescient. When the firm became an RIA in 2019, it didn’t just give them flexibility. It gave them an edge. Through a16z Crypto, they have actively shaped token networks, held governance power, and designed liquidity pathways that do not rely on IPOs or acquisitions. In many ways, their crypto playbook mirrors what the broader venture world is now trying to do: gain long-term control, operate like a platform, and unlock value through more dynamic ownership structures. Tokens are not a workaround. They are a faster, programmable version of the same ownership evolution that is now redefining venture capital.
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