Best of Linkedin: Private Equity: Fundraising CW 29/ 30

Fundraising is contracting almost everywhere, but the capital that is moving is moving in fewer, larger checks. Mega funds and first-time specialists are still closing on schedule while the broad middle struggles, and liquidity pressure is pushing LPs toward secondaries, continuation vehicles and independent sponsor deals instead of waiting out the traditional fund cycle. Family offices are behaving less like passive allocators and more like competitors for the same deal flow, and governance and reporting quality are becoming as important to LPs as track record.

Date

July 31, 2026

Private Equity Insights

Thomas Allgeyer

Methodology: Every two weeks we collect most relevant posts on LinkedIn for selected topics and create an overall summary only based on these posts. If you´re interested in the single posts behind, you can find them here: https://linktr.ee/thomasallgeyer. Have a great read!

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Fundraising Market and Macro Trends

US fundraising fell 19% while $2.1 trillion in dry powder sits idle awaiting regulatory clarity
European fundraising hit a decade low, shifting emphasis from raising new capital toward operational value creation
Five mega platforms captured 73% of LP capital as overall fundraising fell 30%
Mega funds took over 80% of first-half capital as the number of fund closings collapsed
Real estate fundraising fell 38%, yet the managers that did close hit their targets faster
A seven-year fundraising low is pushing investors toward deal-first independent sponsor structures instead of committed funds
Half of private equity capital now targets the lower middle market rather than large-cap vehicles

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Fund Closes and Capital Raised

Clearlake Capital closed Fund VIII and related vehicles at $14.8 billion in commitments
Citation Capital's debut fund closed at a $1.2 billion hard cap, a Texas record for a first-time fund
Uplift Investors closed its debut fund oversubscribed at a $670 million hard cap
Arctos closed the largest first-time GP solutions fund on record at $6.2 billion
The IFC committed $80 million to Capitalworks Fund IV to back South African mid-market companies
Francisco Partners raised $21 billion, betting that AI adoption still lags the pace of innovation
The top ten H1 buyout fundraises reached $129 billion combined, led by KKR's $23 billion vehicle

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Family Offices and LP Capital

Two-thirds of surveyed family offices are expanding into direct equity investing
Family offices are scrutinizing fees and manager selection instead of treating private equity as a checkbox allocation
Family offices are anchoring emerging managers while simultaneously competing with them for the same deals
Most family offices should co-invest alongside proven GPs before attempting direct deals on their own
Gulf investors hold $2.5 trillion in Shariah-compliant assets under dedicated investment mandates
GCC investors allocate 72% of portfolios to growth assets, including 14% to private equity

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Fund Terms, Structures and Liquidity

Three waterfall structures show how distributions split differently between GPs and LPs
A preferred return must be grossed up, making the true hurdle rate 10% rather than the stated figure
Investor scepticism toward evergreen funds centers on doubts about their liquidity promises
Distribution concentration, not portfolio quality, drove recent evergreen fund redemption spikes
Evergreen structures face hard questions on liquidity, gates and LP confidence
Stretched holding periods and lagging DPI point to a broader private equity liquidity problem
Zombie fund NAV hit a record $348.5 billion for assets held past their intended fund lifespans

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Secondaries and Continuation Vehicles

The secondaries surge reflects a decade of cheap capital that inflated fund sizes
AlpInvest closed Atom II as LPs increasingly embrace single-asset continuation vehicles
NPM acquired Nasdaq's fund secondaries business to widen access to private market liquidity
Continuation funds now sit at the intersection of secondaries, governance and operations
Secondaries increasingly resemble aged wine: shorter waits, deeper discounts, de-risked exposure

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Fund Operations, Governance and Advisory

Fund administration choices increasingly come down to team quality and technology capability
Reporting, data quality and governance now shape both fundraising and investor due diligence
Independent sponsors need dedicated capital raise advisors to secure equity and debt quickly
Independent sponsor deals are outperforming committed funds on quality, deal flow and alignment
Multiple-based LP comparisons obscure the real operational differences between software assets

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Industry Events and LP Relationships

CVC leadership discussed navigating fundraising in an environment where trust anchors GP-LP relationships
Golding's Investor Days emphasized that long-term LP partnerships rest on trust and transparency
A family office summit stressed transparency, capital preservation and compounding relationships as core priorities
KKR Academy Tokyo gathered distribution partners around high-conviction Japanese investment opportunities

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Thanks to Christian R., Chris Reilly, Pravin Sivananthan, Ronald Diamond, Hugh MacArthur, Elliott T. Friedman, Charlotte Hogg, Sofia Tulupova, Alberto De Nova, Philipp Kraft, Hasan Qaiser, Jan Voss, John Koeppel, Snorre Kofoed-Hansen, Christoph Jost, Joe Briggs, Jarrett Turner, Peter Martenson, Rachel A. Z., Alexander Rayden, Farid Fezoua, Kristen Duarte, Jillian (Fonseca) Mederos, Leonardo Rosas, Tom Callahan, Michael Hacker, Abbas Hashmi, Sean Barrett, Jahmaine A. Reimann, Alec Miller, Trevor Noren, Mario Peshev, Peter Denious, Nicola Ebmeyer, George Bagkalas, Guillaume Danloy, Nimisha Srivastava, Thomas Hallinger, Randy Smith, and Alisa Wood for contributing insights to this edition. Find the full list of posts and voices on LinkedIn: