Dragoneer Uses Scarce Tech Stakes to Support $1 Billion GP-Led Secondary

Dragoneer Investment Group has raised about $1 billion for a continuation fund after initially seeking $2 billion, using access to high-profile investments including OpenAI and SpaceX as part of its pitch to secondary-market buyers, according to people familiar with the transaction cited by Bloomberg.

The San Francisco investment firm also considered putting stakes in Databricks and wealth manager Creative Planning into the proposed portfolio, although the final composition of the roughly $1 billion vehicle remains unclear. The transaction provides another example of private-market managers using valuable, difficult-to-access holdings to generate liquidity while retaining longer-term exposure to selected portfolio companies.

Dragoneer seeks longer holding periods

The central assets behind the transaction include specialty insurance distributor Amwins Group and health care software company PointClickCare, according to Bloomberg. Dragoneer’s objective is to retain investments it believes can continue creating value rather than sell them outright to meet liquidity demands from existing investors.

Continuation funds typically transfer one or more investments from an older fund or portfolio into a newly capitalized vehicle. Existing investors generally receive the option to cash out or roll their exposure into the new structure, while the sponsor receives additional time to hold the underlying companies.

The structure has become increasingly important as private-market managers contend with longer holding periods and pressure from limited partners for distributions. PE NEWSWIRE previously examined how structured fund-stake transactions are expanding as private equity investors seek liquidity, including preferred-equity and other secondary-market solutions that allow investors and managers to unlock capital without relying on conventional exits.

Dragoneer’s relationship with Amwins stretches back more than a decade. In 2016, the investment firm increased its position in the specialty insurance broker in a transaction that valued Amwins at approximately $2.6 billion.

Dragoneer later participated alongside Genstar Capital, SkyKnight Capital and employee shareholders in a 2023 recapitalization that purchased $1 billion of equity from more than 375 Amwins employees and PSP Investments. Following that transaction, employees remained the largest ownership group with approximately 40% of the company. The Amwins announcement detailing the $1 billion recapitalization described Dragoneer as the company’s largest institutional investor.

OpenAI and other scarce assets strengthen the secondary pitch

What differentiates Dragoneer’s transaction from a conventional continuation vehicle is the potential inclusion of some of the most closely watched technology investments in private markets.

Dragoneer’s willingness to offer exposure to OpenAI, and potentially Databricks, provided prospective secondary investors with access to companies whose shares have attracted substantial institutional demand. Bloomberg reported that discounts on assets involved in the transaction ranged from roughly 5% to 20%, while some companies were valued without a discount. By comparison, venture and growth secondary transactions averaged roughly 65% to 70% of net asset value during the first half of 2026, according to PJT Partners data cited by Bloomberg.

OpenAI has itself become a major destination for institutional technology capital. The company operates through OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation following a restructuring announced in October 2025, according to OpenAI’s description of its corporate structure.

The scarcity value attached to late-stage technology holdings can materially change the economics of a secondary transaction. Rather than selling a portfolio consisting solely of mature assets that require additional holding periods, a sponsor can combine those positions with investments for which buyers already have strong demand.

That can narrow discounts and broaden the prospective buyer pool.

Dragoneer’s hybrid strategy shapes the transaction

Dragoneer’s investment model also differs from that of a traditional buyout manager. The firm invests across public and private markets and has backed technology and technology-enabled companies including Airbnb, Datadog, DoorDash, Nubank, PointClickCare, Procore, ServiceTitan, Slack, Snowflake and Uber.

PointClickCare lists Dragoneer partner Christian Jensen as a board member and describes the firm as managing more than $22 billion. Dragoneer first led an $85 million financing for the health care software company in 2017 and subsequently increased its investment.

Bloomberg reported that Dragoneer’s broader hybrid fund has roughly $15 billion in assets and that the continuation transaction will help the manager move toward a targeted two-to-one ratio between public and private investments.

The ability to move mature private holdings into a continuation structure can therefore serve two purposes: providing liquidity to investors and freeing capacity within the existing portfolio for Dragoneer’s public-private allocation strategy.

GP-led secondaries become a portfolio-management tool

Continuation vehicles have moved from a relatively specialized restructuring technique into a mainstream part of private-capital portfolio management. Sponsors can use them to hold prized investments beyond a conventional fund term while offering liquidity to LPs that prefer to exit.

For growth investors, the approach can be particularly useful when a portfolio contains companies that remain private for extended periods.

PE NEWSWIRE’s analysis of SpaceX’s 2026 public-market exit and its implications for late-stage private capital examined how secondary liquidity can bridge long private holding periods before an eventual realization.

Dragoneer’s transaction adds another dimension to that trend. High-demand technology holdings can effectively become negotiating assets in a broader portfolio restructuring, helping managers attract secondary capital for companies they want to retain.

The fact that Dragoneer ultimately raised about $1 billion rather than its proposed $2 billion also shows that possessing sought-after private-company exposure does not eliminate execution constraints. Secondary investors still have to assess portfolio concentration, valuation, duration and the economics of the assets being transferred.

For private-market managers, the broader implication is that continuation funds are increasingly being used not simply to postpone exits, but to actively reshape portfolios and match different assets with investors willing to accept longer holding periods. Dragoneer’s use of scarce OpenAI and other technology exposure illustrates how the most liquid names in otherwise illiquid portfolios can help facilitate that process.