Fundraising market and capital concentration

• PE fundraising hit $445bn year to date, up 5%
• The top 10 firms raised $854.6B, a quarter of the top 300 total
• Fundraising last year was the lowest since 2020 at $735 billion
• UK funds below £150m fell from 5.2% to 1.3% of PE capital
• GPs with a 20%+ net IRR fund close the next in six months
• Half of $1.2 trillion buyout dry powder sits in funds aged two to five years

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Fund closes and new launches

• Investcorp closed NAPE Fund II at $1.22 billion, above target
• Audax Private Debt closed DLS Fund III at its $10 billion hard cap
• Rising Point Capital raised $325 million against a $250 million target
• DTCP reached a €455m first close for its defence fund
• DAL Partners launched a €40m inaugural fund focused on AI adoption
• Advent International is starting a mid-market strategy

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Secondaries, GP financing and liquidity structures

• Ares closed its debut structured solutions fund at $4.2 billion
• GP financing funds raised more than $11B in 2026
• Secondaries raised a record $104bn in 2025
• Wenova and Revenant Ventures launched smaller secondaries funds
• Partners Group plans to split its €6.6bn evergreen fund in two
• Blackstone's BXPM offers one allocation across four private asset classes

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LP sentiment and allocation behavior

• More than 90% of tracked LPs are open to new managers
• Over 1,800 LPs at IPEM planned about €110bn of allocations
• LPs are concentrating commitments with proven managers
• Heavier due diligence is the top fundraising barrier for PE firms
• DPI, not brand or story, drives LP conviction
• OMERS leads large non-US pensions at 68.9% private markets exposure

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Family offices

• Equities rose from 34% to 37% of family office portfolios in Q2
• Family offices are shifting toward direct and co-investments
• Real estate family offices demand GP economics and decision rights
• Only 65 of 1,170 fund-investing vehicles proved to be real allocators
• Pritzker Alternative Strategies builds a middle market platform for family offices

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GP economics, valuation and governance

• GP commitments of 3%+ outperform sub 1% by about 280bp of net IRR
• Some funds delay carry until 2X DPI
• Two buyout firms marked one company at 0.7x and 1.4x
• Headline carry ignores the preferred return and catch-up sequence
• LPs ask GPs for their last three personally driven improvements
• Failing Fund I investments should be flagged to LPs early

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Deals and sector themes

• Blackstone spent $13.5B on operators, including Tricon and AIR
• Defense manufacturing deals rose from 24 to 39
• Climate infrastructure funds raised a record $160 billion in 2025
• Ares is moving from financing data centers to developing them
• Wealth Enhancement bought $22B AUM RIA RWA Wealth Partners
• Blackford Capital secured $130 million from New 2ND Capital

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Technology and AI in private markets

• TypeSafe claims to be 444x cheaper than a frontier LLM
• Ivy, an AI operator, launched for family offices and funds
• Eton Axis targets fund waterfall and carry complexity
• AI should be a feature, not the core PE thesis

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Thanks to Nicolas Keller, Marcus Robbins, Jeevan Kumar Nahak, Lee McCabe, Ed Stubbings, Aman Khandelia, Christian R., Ignacio P., George Khalife, Shahrukh Khan, Alejandro Cremades, Tomer Sapir, Mustafa Siddiqui, Verne Harnish, Cedric Teissier, Christoph Totter, Niklas James, Alexander Sen, David Zhou, Jed Johnson, Tony O. Lawson, Mark Anderson, Barry Toren, David Keir, Mike Auerbach, Kumar U., Arun Jain, Dar'shun Kendrick, Paul Stanton, Andrew Sachs, Joe Briggs, Michael Mager‍, Ronald Diamond, Philip De Vusser, Frister Haveman, Christian Bestel, Chris Witkowsky, Mariano Grosman, Ridaa Murad, Jae C., Yasmin M., Romain Bégramian, Jay Goss, Amy Richardson, Vishnu Amble, Antoine Colson, Evan Kilpatrick, Tjarda Molenaar, Anikka Villegas and everyone else who contributed insights to this edition. Find the full list of posts and voices on LinkedIn: