The Operator in the Gap
There is a particular moment in the life of a successful private company - after the last funding round, before the IPO - where shareholders, employees, and early backers find themselves holding something valuable and thoroughly stuck. SooMan Wolffs built his career in that gap.
As General Partner at Manhattan Venture Partners (MVP.vc), Wolffs focuses on the secondary market for late-stage private technology companies - a corner of finance that has evolved from a niche workaround into one of the most strategically important asset classes in venture. The firm he works for has processed over $10 billion in transaction volume and manages more than $1 billion in assets, with stakes in companies including xAI, Anthropic, Klarna, Discord, Epic Games, and Instacart.
Wolffs joined Manhattan Venture Partners in July 2019, initially as Vice President, and was promoted to General Partner in 2024 - a recognition that underscored not just tenure but depth. His responsibilities span the full arc of a secondary deal: investment due diligence, deal structuring, executing investments for the All-Star fund family, and supporting the firm's Secondary as a Service business line.
"When private shareholders need liquidity before the IPO, the secondary market is often the only mechanism that works."
- The operational reality that shapes SooMan Wolffs's work at MVP.vcBased in San Francisco - the right geography for a firm operating at the intersection of venture-backed tech and institutional capital - Wolffs anchors MVP's West Coast presence while the firm's headquarters stays in New York. MVP operates from six cities globally: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, and Dubai.
Before the Secondary - Carta
To understand Wolffs's edge in secondary markets, it helps to know where he spent the years before Manhattan Venture Partners. At Carta (then still known as eShares), he was an early member of the valuations team - joining when the firm was still establishing itself as a player in private market infrastructure, before it became the company that would eventually track trillions of dollars in private company equity.
That timing mattered. Getting in early at Carta meant Wolffs was doing the foundational work of private company valuation - the 409A assessments, the financial modeling, the cap table analysis - at the moment the industry's methodology was being built from scratch. He later moved to Carta's Capital Markets and Liquidity Solutions team, which put him directly on the liquidity-solutions side of the equation. That's a straight line to what he does now.
Carta (formerly eShares) went on to become one of the most important pieces of private market infrastructure in the world, eventually tracking over $2.5 trillion in private company equity. Wolffs was there when the scaffolding was being assembled - doing valuations before they were commoditized, and liquidity solutions before there was an obvious market for them.
Before Carta, Wolffs spent time at SmartBiz Loans, a FinTech company developing automated underwriting software for SBA loans. It's a different corner of finance, but the thread is the same: he was consistently drawn to the mechanical infrastructure of money movement - the systems that determine who gets capital, on what terms, and when.
The Qualifications Stack
Wolffs holds a BS in Finance with a minor in International Business from Santa Clara University, and went back for a Master of Science in Financial Analysis (MSFA) from the University of San Francisco - a credential that proved more than academic. During his time at USF, he was selected by a professor to be one of ten graduate students to co-manage the university's million-dollar student investment fund.
In 2016, his USF team entered the CFA Institute Research Challenge - one of the most competitive student investment competitions in the world - and won the Northern California regional championship, beating out teams from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and other top programs. The team then represented Northern California at the national competition in Chicago in April 2016.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge asks student teams to conduct real-world equity research - full financial modeling, sector analysis, and investment recommendation - on an assigned public company. Beating Haas and UC Berkeley, schools with substantially more resources and brand recognition, was a notable result for a USF team.
The Series 79 license is worth noting specifically: it covers investment banking - merger and acquisition transactions, private placements, and restructurings. Most people in venture capital don't hold it. For someone operating in the secondary market for private companies, where deal structure is often as important as deal sourcing, it's a relevant credential.
From SBA Loans to xAI
Manhattan Venture Partners - What They Actually Do
Manhattan Venture Partners describes itself as a "research-driven merchant-banking firm focused on the secondary market for late-stage private technology companies." The firm's own claim is that it helped pioneer the institutionalization of this asset class - meaning it was operating systematically in a space that most institutional investors were still treating as opportunistic at best, problematic at worst.
The mechanics of what MVP does: it buys stakes in private companies from existing shareholders - employees, early investors, founders - before those companies go public or get acquired. The firm's All-Star fund family pools capital to make these purchases at scale. The Secondary as a Service business line, which Wolffs supports, extends the model further: working with companies directly to design and execute structured liquidity programs for their shareholders.
The portfolio reads like a shortlist of the most-watched private companies of the last decade. Wolffs and his colleagues have built positions in or around companies including:
What He's Actually Done
Beat teams from UC Berkeley Haas, SFSU, and other regional programs. Represented Northern California at the national competition in Chicago.
One of ten graduate students selected to co-manage the University of San Francisco's live investment portfolio. Conducted valuation research and financial modeling on public tech companies including Facebook and Square.
Joined before the firm's market dominance was established. Helped build the infrastructure that made Carta the leading private market valuation provider.
Recognized by firm leadership including co-founder Andrea Lamari for his five years of contribution to the firm's deal flow and investment operations.
Holds Series 7 (general securities), Series 63 (state securities agent), and Series 79 (investment banking) - an unusually broad regulatory qualification for a venture-side investor.