Turbine raises $22M to help VC investors get cash without selling their stakes

Since IPOs slowed to trickle a few years ago, limited partners who invest in venture capital funds have had one giant problem: a dearth of liquidity. Lack of cash returns has been especially troublesome for wealthy individuals or their small family offices — who manage the assets of the wealthy — that made substantial investments in VC funds. Having funds locked up in venture capital was a big issue for entrepreneur Mike Hurst. After selling Exactuals (a payments startup he founded) to City National Bank in 2018, he invested a good portion of the proceeds from the exit into tech stocks and venture funds. Then the tech stocks crashed in 2022 and Hurst told TechCrunch that he didn’t have enough free cash to support his VC fund commitments. “Firms kept coming for capital calls and new investments. I wanted to make them, but I didn’t want to mortgage the house, take a margin line or sell Amazon at $90 when I knew it was going back to $210,” he said. That experience gave Hurst the idea ... Read full article.