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In private capital markets, access to a closed primary round has a price: intermediary vehicles with layered fees and long lock-ups.
A new fundraising round at Chinese AI laboratory DeepSeek has spawned exactly that market, triggering a rush of investment vehicles carrying escalating fees and five-year lock-up terms around the lab's latest capital raise.
The constraint here is straightforward.
When primary allocation closes to a limited pool, outside investors who want exposure have to go through intermediaries, each of whom captures part of the primary stake and sells access to it at a markup.
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