Canva helps Airtree Ventures maintain majority stake as first fund yields promising returns
Airtree Ventures already returned its first fund thanks to Canva while maintaining the majority of its stakeVenture secondaries has exploded over the last couple of years.
While some firms have used the increase in activity to build up their positions in their most promising portfolio companies, Airtree Ventures is taking advantage of the momentum a little differently.
So in 2021 Airtree started seeking out alternative ways to get liquidity for some of their earliest stakes, Blair said.
Airtree got a 1.4x return on Fund I from this transaction alone and was able to maintain the majority of their original stake.
They aren’t wrong, and Blair acknowledges that when a company does eventually exit, Airtree makes less money off of it because of this strategy.
