Ballast Equity Partners

What Ballast Equity Partners does

Ballast Equity Partners is a Providence, Rhode Island-based boutique financial intermediary that provides liquidity solutions across the venture and growth equity ecosystem. Founded in 2022 by Jon Popielarski (former Director of Private Assets at the $10.5B Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island) and David Martirano (former Co-Founder & General Partner at PJC), the firm operates with a 5-person team and targets four distinct liquidity needs: Direct Company Interests (purchases of shares from founders and employees, typically $500K-$10M, including cashless exercises, earn-outs, and employee tender offers), Fund Interests (secondary purchases of LP fund interests in venture and growth portfolios, $1M-$20M+), GP Solutions (personal liquidity products for General Partners including non-interest bearing NAV loans, carry advancements, unfunded swaps, and preferred returns), and VC/Growth Custom Solutions (bespoke SMA and Fund of One structures for institutional allocators). Select disclosed direct-deal counterparties include DailyPay, Homebase, Lucidworks, Lattice, MinIO, WHOOP, Maven, and SmartAsset.

The firm's business model is transaction-fee based: revenue is generated through spreads and fees on direct share purchases, LP fund interest purchases, and NAV loan / carry advancement structures. There is no disclosed technology product, marketplace, or self-serve channel; the go-to-motion is exclusively direct, relationship-based enterprise sales to institutional investors, GPs, LPs, founders, and employees, with deal origination concentrated through trusted network relationships rather than broad marketing. The firm is privately held with no disclosed funding rounds, no public revenue figures, and no parent company.

Ballast differentiates on confidentiality, bespoke structuring, and a passive investment posture (no board seats or activist roles) intended to preserve LP-GP relationships. Its competitive position rests on a talent moat drawn from the founders' institutional pension, VC fund-of-funds, and direct venture backgrounds, with the team collectively representing 40+ years of relevant experience. As a young boutique operating in a relationship-driven segment of the secondary market, Ballast competes against larger secondary platforms by emphasizing fit, discretion, and tailored structures over scale.

Name

Ballast Equity Partners

Legal name

Ballast Equity Partners

Website

https://ballastequitypartners.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Ballast Equity Partners is a Providence, Rhode Island-based boutique that provides bespoke liquidity solutions for the venture and growth equity ecosystem, serving founders, employees, General Partners, Limited Partners, and institutional allocators via secondary purchases, NAV loans, and custom SMA structures.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Private Equity Secondary Market Services

NAICS

Other Financial Vehicles (52599), Portfolio Management and Investment Advice (523940)

SIC

Security Brokers, Dealers & Flotation Companies (6211)

akta.pro primary industry

LP Secondaries — Venture Capital Funds (FSAHALAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

LP Secondaries — Growth Equity Funds (FSAHALAC), Tail-End / Residual Portfolio Secondaries (FSANAFAK), Secondaries Co-Investments & Annex Funds (FSANAFAF)

Keywords

• Private market liquidity
• Venture capital secondaries
• Growth equity solutions
• GP liquidity financing
• Secondary market purchases

Headquarters

HQ city

Providence

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. NAV Loans and Carry Advancements: Provides non-interest bearing cash loans collateralized with venture and growth assets, and cash advances collateralized against current GP carry value. Revenue generated through interest or fee structures on these liquidity products.
2. Direct Share Purchases: Purchases shares from company insiders at negotiated prices, providing liquidity through direct transfers and cashless exercises. Revenue generated through spread or transaction fees on share purchases.
3. Fund Interest Secondary Purchases: Purchases LP fund interests and single fund interests on the secondary market, providing liquidity to limited partners. Revenue from transaction fees and portfolio management arrangements.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Ballast Equity Partners is a boutique private markets capital partner that provides liquidity solutions across the venture and growth equity ecosystem. The firm purchases direct company shares from founders and employees, acquires LP fund interests on the secondary market, extends NAV loans and carry advancements to General Partners, and structures bespoke SMA and Fund of One vehicles for institutional investors seeking tailored access to venture and growth markets.

Product overview

Ballast Equity Partners is a private markets capital partner offering a unified suite of liquidity solutions for the venture and growth equity ecosystem. The platform operates across four interconnected offerings: Direct Company Interests (liquidity for founders and employees from private company equity), Fund Interests (secondary liquidity for LP positions in venture and growth funds), GP Solutions (personal liquidity products for General Partners including NAV loans and carry advancements), and VC/Growth Custom Solutions (tailored institutional access to venture and growth markets via bespoke SMA and Fund of One structures). These products work together to serve the full lifecycle of private market liquidity needs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Direct Company Interests

Quantifiable outcome

• Zero non-accident releases statistic from rail industry (unrelated to Ballast's business)

Named customers8 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Top Tier Capital Partners: Venture-only fund-of-funds platform active in primaries, secondaries, and directs — the same three core verticals as Ballast. Ben Challgren spent nearly a decade at Top Tier before joining Ballast, making it the closest talent-lineage and product-line competitor.
• Industry Ventures: Established venture-focused investment platform running primaries, secondaries, and direct co-investment funds. Directly comparable to Ballast's Custom Solutions and Fund Interests products, with a much longer track record and larger fund vintages.
• PJC (Pepper Johnston Capital): Early-stage venture firm where Ballast's co-founders (Martirano and Keegan) previously worked. While PJC is primary-focused, it shares Ballast's GP relationship network and provides lineage overlap in deal sourcing.
• EquityZen: Online marketplace facilitating secondary transactions in pre-IPO company shares for employees and investors. Most directly comparable to Ballast's Direct Company Interests product, though delivered through a technology platform rather than bespoke relationship management.

Broad incumbents

• Adams Street Partners: Large-scale private markets manager offering primaries, secondaries, co-investments, and growth funds across venture, buyout, and credit. Overlaps with Ballast across LP secondaries and custom solutions but at vastly greater scale.
• StepStone Group: Global private markets investment firm with substantial secondaries, co-investment, and primary fund capabilities across venture and growth. A scaled competitor in the LP-secondaries and structured-GP-solutions space where Ballast operates.
• Lazard Secondaries: Advisory-led secondaries practice within Lazard's asset management arm, focused on LP-led and GP-led secondary transactions across private equity and venture. Comparable to Ballast's Fund Interests business but with global institutional distribution.
• Lexington Partners: One of the largest dedicated secondary investors globally, covering LP-led and GP-led secondary transactions across private equity. Ballast's Fund Interests offering competes for the same seller relationships, though Lexington operates at substantially larger scale.
• Forge (Forge Global): Public-market-traded private securities marketplace providing liquidity solutions for employees, investors, and companies. Operates in the same direct-company-secondary liquidity space as Ballast but with a tech platform model and broader market data infrastructure.

Emerging players

• Hiive: Marketplace for private company secondary transactions, facilitating price discovery and matching between buyers and sellers of pre-IPO shares. Comparable to Ballast's Direct Company Interests offering via a different delivery model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/pjc-secondary

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ballast Equity Partners