Investor Profile: Glendower Capital — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Glendower Capital funding is not startup funding at all: it is liquidity for the private equity market itself. Glendower was established in 2017 when its founding partners spun out the secondary business they had founded in 2005 at Deutsche Asset Management. In 2022 the business was acquired by CVC, and in 2024 it was renamed CVC Secondary Partners. Founders researching the Glendower name should therefore follow the CVC Secondary Partners story, because that is where the team and its funds now sit.

Investment thesis

CVC Secondary Partners is dedicated solely to secondaries, pursuing a two-pronged strategy on a global basis: buying limited partner fund portfolios and backing general partner-led transactions. The goal is a broadly diversified portfolio of private equity and credit assets.

Sectors and stages

The firm invests across private equity and credit secondaries globally, rather than in any single sector or startup stage. Its deals are typically mature: portfolios of fund interests, single-asset continuation vehicles and bespoke liquidity solutions for sellers and fund managers. In 2025 it launched a dedicated credit secondaries platform alongside its private equity secondaries business.

Fund size and cheque size

CVC Secondary Partners reports funds raised with aggregate capital commitments of $15 billion. Its senior team reports a track record across more than 200 closed transactions involving more than 1,800 fund interests and more than 70 bespoke continuation vehicles, having screened around US$1 trillion of secondary transactions. No standard cheque size is publicly disclosed: secondary deal sizes vary enormously, from single fund stakes to multi-billion portfolio purchases, and are priced case by case.

Notable portfolio

No company-level portfolio is publicly disclosed, and that is structural rather than secretive: the firm owns interests in funds and continuation vehicles, not named startup stakes. Third-party profiles confirm the same point, noting that the firm has not publicly disclosed specific portfolio companies. Its measurable footprint is transaction volume: more than 1,800 fund interests acquired, managed by 500 managers, across more than 200 transactions. An early illustration of its style was backing Compass Partners' 2018 acquisition of three assets from Bridgepoint in a €100 million transaction.

Partners and team

Carlo Pirzio-Biroli is Managing Partner and Head of CVC Secondary Partners. He led the firm through the CVC acquisition, saying the partnership would let the business accelerate growth and institutionalise further while its management continued to lead it. The senior team has worked together in secondaries since 2005, which is the firm's core selling point to sellers who need certainty of execution. The firm is headquartered in London with offices including New York.

Programmes, credits and perks

No public programme found for founders: CVC Secondary Partners runs no accelerator, founder credits scheme or startup perks programme, and founders cannot apply to it for capital. Its "programmes" are fund strategies for institutional investors.

How to apply for funding

There is no founder application route, and founders should not pitch this firm. The counterparties are limited partners seeking to sell fund interests and general partners seeking GP-led liquidity solutions, who approach the team through CVC's secondaries platform at cvc.com. A founder whose investor is considering a continuation vehicle can ask that investor whether a secondary partner is involved, but the negotiation sits between the fund manager and the secondary buyer, not with the portfolio company.