Industry Ventures

Hans Swildens, the founder, serves as CEO and sets the firm's overall investment strategy. He is supported by a partnership group that includes Senior Managing Directors Roland Reynolds and Justin Burden, who lead the secondary and direct investment practices respectively. Investment committees review transactions within each fund family, with principals who have sector-specific sourcing expertise across enterprise software, AI, fintech, and digital health.

The firm sources through long-standing relationships with general partners who need liquidity solutions for their limited partners, structuring agents running secondary auctions, and a direct network of founders, early employees, and venture capital firms seeking pre-IPO stock sales. Because Industry Ventures is both a primary LP and a secondary buyer, it gains early visibility into portfolio restructurings and GPs seeking bespoke continuation-vehicle structures.

Industry Ventures operates as an institutional fund manager, raising capital from pensions, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds. It is not a family office. The firm manages commingled vehicles across secondary, primary, and direct strategies, with hundreds of institutional limited partners across its fund families.

Industry Ventures does both. Its secondary funds buy LP positions in venture and buyout funds; its hybrid funds blend secondary purchases with new primary commitments to venture capital firms; and its direct funds invest in individual companies, typically through secondary stock purchases from existing shareholders or co-investments alongside general partners.

The firm covers the full venture lifecycle. LP secondaries span seed through late-stage venture funds. Direct investments target early-stage to pre-IPO companies, with recent vintage vehicles concentrated on Series B through late-stage rounds. Buyout fund secondaries add exposure to mature private equity assets. No single stage dominates — the mix depends on fund family and vintage-year pricing.

Industry Ventures functions as a liquidity provider, not a replacement manager. The firm purchases LP interests that are already funded, stepping into the seller's remaining capital-call obligations and distribution rights. It does not lead buyouts of management companies. In direct secondary deals, it buys stock from employees and early investors through structured tender processes approved by the issuing company's board.

Industry Ventures selectively co-invests alongside its primary relationships when a GP offers pari-passu terms. The direct fund family occasionally participates in GP-led syndicates for growth-stage rounds. Co-investment is not the dominant model — the firm prefers secondary pricing where it can set terms rather than accepting a lead investor's valuation.