Private equity fund investors turn to debt-like deals in downturn

Investors in private equity funds are increasingly turning to creative debt-like deals to generate cash amid a dearth of payouts, as the sector’s dealmaking downturn stretches on. Backers of buyout funds agreed $9bn worth of “alternative”, structured transactions last year to bring in cash from their stakes in the vehicles, up from $6bn in 2024, investment bank Jefferies told the FT. READ MORE

We Need To Save Venture Capital From Bad Data

Investing, particularly venture capital, is 50% science and 50% art. The industry relies heavily on charisma and the founders’ “it” factor. That criteria warrants plenty of merit; one shared truth among all my investor colleagues is that the greatest founders of our generation have an unmistakable drive and dedication to their craft that is near impossible to put a finger on.

But here is how the process actually works once the charming visionaries have been identified. When an investor meets a promising founder and decides to take a closer look, they are handed a vast collection of data. READ MORE

How six venture capital giants are reshaping startup financing

The venture capital landscape is becoming increasingly concentrated, with six megafirms— Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Founders Fund and General Catalyst—now raising more capital than all other U.S. venture firms combined over the past two years, Inc. reports. 

Their growth has been fueled by the enormous capital requirements of AI startups, the trend of successful companies remaining private longer and institutional investors’ preference for backing a small group of established fund managers. READ MORE

Amid rising interest in defense, IPOs are an increasingly viable exit route for investors

IPOs are an increasingly viable exit route for equity investors with defense-related businesses in their portfolios. The universe of potential trade buyers for defense assets is likely to be limited in a world where governments have a significant say in any change of ownership, and therefore flotations are a good option for sponsors seeking a liquidity event.

Defense IPOs present distinctive legal and diligence challenges that set them apart from conventional listings. Government contracts are central to defense companies’ business models but are not standard commercial agreements; while they are often long-term, defense procurement requirements give government buyers significant negotiating power as well as the right to alter commercial terms. Potential investors will therefore want to carefully diligence these agreements in order to take a view on the quality and security of the company’s order book. READ MORE

Private equity pushes insurance to get risky

Private equity’s headlong rush into the life insurance industry has misaligned incentives, inflated risky assets, and produced a crop of “zombie insurers” just waiting to blow up, according to one of the few insiders willing to say so out loud.

“We know them, we see them, we whisper about them,” Anant Bhalla said on the latest episode of Semafor’s Compound Interest. “We need to speak more openly about it.” READ MORE

The queen of private equity recruitment: “We receive between 12,000 and 15,000 CVs a month”

Gail McManus is stepping back. 30 years after founding Private Equity Recruitment (PER), the firm that’s both literally and practically synonymous with getting a private equity job in Europe, McManus is working part-time. She handed leadership of PER to long term colleagues Charlie Hunt and Rupert Bell last year in a management buyout and now has the luxury of regularly switching on her out of office. But she hasn’t disappeared entirely: McManus is the well-established queen of private equity hiring, and she still enjoys wearing that crown.  

“Jobs in this industry are all about trust and judgement and potential and whatever you do people remain gloriously diverse, difficult, charismatic, challenging, awkward and entrepreneurial,” says McManus of private capital firms and their employees. “This is why I love it.”  READ MORE

Top Venture Firms Cornered 91% of Capital Raised in Q1

In a venture market increasingly dominated by a handful of giant names, the squeeze is not just on startups chasing capital. It is also hitting the investors trying to raise it.

“It’s harder than ever to raise a fund as an emerging manager,” venture capitalist Nisha Dua said, capturing a mood that many newer firms have felt since the funding boom gave way to a more selective market. PitchBook data show experienced firms captured 91% of capital raised in the first quarter of 2026, up from 74% across 2025, the highest share in the database. READ MORE

Dual-use technologies offer attractive defense entry point for private capital firms

Dual-use technologies (i.e., items that are designed for commercial/civil use but that can also be used in battlefield, security, or weapons proliferations purposes, such as drones, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity systems, and quantum computing) are a rapidly expanding area of investment focus for private capital firms.  

The broadening definition of defense beyond traditional hardware is creating significant value creation opportunities, but it also brings legal, regulatory, and practical challenges that require careful consideration.  READ MORE

Venture debt acts as a bridge between funding stages for tech startups

A new international study has found that venture debt is reshaping how capital moves through technology startup ecosystems around the world. Analyzing data from 59 countries between 2015 and 2024, the researchers show that greater venture debt availability is associated with lower early-stage equity funding, higher late-stage equity funding, and a positive overall effect on the total capital available to startups. READ MORE

Resolving Muddled Objectives in Corporate Venture Capital

Large companies seeking access to new technologies — as well as the high returns promised by early investments in successful startups — have been establishing corporate venture capital (CVC) units for many years. But returns on those investments can be erratic, and new technologies can be difficult for the parent company to take advantage of. Why do many companies struggle to derive adequate benefits from their CVC efforts? We think that at the heart of the issue is a persistent confusion over objectives that ultimately makes CVCs difficult to sustain. READ MORE

US Venture Capital Outlook: Midyear Update

Six months into 2026, the US venture market has produced record-breaking headlines and exhibited persistent structural contradictions in equal measure. Our midyear update to the four outlooks we published in December examines both developments, tracking what has materialized and what remains unresolved as the second half of the year approaches.

The early-stage surge we anticipated has arrived ahead of schedule, driven by AI’s compression of company-building costs and the continued deepening of megafund participation at seed and Series A. First financings are on track to exceed 7,000 by year-end, a new record by more than 1,300 deals. Late-stage and venture-growth activity has been even more striking: The $274.2 billion in venture-growth capital deployed through May is already more than double the full-year 2025 total, though 86.4% of that figure traces back to four rounds from three foundation model companies. Fundraising, meanwhile, has concentrated sharply at the top, with funds over $1 billion capturing nearly 72% of capital raised YTD, while first-time managers have accounted for less than 10%. READ MORE

Robotics Startups On Fire As Venture Funding Surges To Record Numbers In 2026

Robotics startup funding hit a record high in 2025, per Crunchbase data. And that trend is continuing in 2026 so far, with funding to the sector already eclipsing 2025’s totals.

Globally, robotics startups have so far raised $18.8 billion in 2026, compared to $15 billion in the full year of 2025. The figure also handily surpasses the $14.1 billion raised in the peak venture funding year of 2021, and we still have more than six months of fundraising left. READ MORE

PE firms want software deals, but lenders don't want to fund them

While some PE firms want to push ahead and buy companies they believe will thrive in the AI era, their calls for term sheets are being turned down—a sudden retreat by longtime partners that has left sponsors frustrated.

"For some of these deals, lenders just say, 'Don't even think about it. We have too much software exposure. We are not going to fund another software buyout,'" said one M&A lawyer, who added they are working on two deals where parties have completed due diligence but no committed lender has been found. READ MORE

PE has yet to prove its AI bets to investors

Private equity firms have raced to embed AI into portfolio companies, betting it will reshape businesses and boost valuations, yet few have results to show for it.

A round of conversations with advisers provided a reality check on the hype, laying bare the distance between what the PE industry is hankering for from AI and what its experiments have delivered so far. While most firms have been tinkering enthusiastically, many haven’t done it in a way that has translated into financial gains. READ MORE