Investors raise billions to buy discounted stakes in start-ups

Investment firms are raising billions of dollars to buy stakes in venture capital-backed technology start-ups, as a long drought in acquisitions and initial public offerings forces early investors to offload their stock at discounts. The start-up secondary market, where investors and employees buy and sell tens of billions of dollars’ worth of shares in privately held companies, is becoming an increasingly important trading venue, in the absence of traditional ways of cashing out and given a slowdown in start-up funding. Venture secondaries buyers are primed for a busy year as start-up employees look for a way to sell their stock and investors look to return capital to their own backers or reallocate it elsewhere.