European startup valuations are climbing again. Across stages, median pre-money valuations rose in Q1 2026 while the share of down rounds fell to roughly 10%, from 14.7%, according to PitchBook's Q1 2026 European VC Valuations Report.

Logistics dealmaking proved unexpectedly durable last quarter. Private equity logged $9.4 billion across 41 confirmed deals in Q1 2026 (an estimated $10.7 billion across 58), holding firm even as dealmakers were whipsawed by a US Supreme Court ruling on the Trump tariff regime and fresh supply-chain disruption from the Iran war, per PitchBook's Q1 2026 Logistics Report.

After a record run, medtech is taking a breather. Venture funding moderated in Q1 2026 following a multiyear high of $16.1 billion in 2025, while PE deal count dropped to 26 — about 41% below the initially reported Q1 2025 level, according to PitchBook's Q1 2026 Medtech VC and PE Trends report.

Advent's co-chair argues that complexity in European markets, carve-outs, and cross-border sector expertise is the source of durable private equity alpha — not the friction that gets in the way of it.

Private equity fundraising has entered a new era of concentration — and PitchBook argues it's structural, not cyclical. In its Q2 2026 analyst note, "US Private Equity's New Fundraising Reality," the firm finds LPs funneling commitments to a shorter list of brand-name managers, squeezing the middle market so hard that middle-market final closes fell below 200 in 2025 for the first time since 2018.

Venture valuations are setting records again — and AI is the reason. Median pre-money valuations reached new highs across every stage in Q1 2026, with AI companies commanding a roughly 4x premium over peers: Series D+ AI startups carried a median pre-money valuation of $4.7 billion versus $1.3 billion for non-AI, according to PitchBook's Q1 2026 US VC Valuations and Returns Report.

The first four months of 2026 were defined by one word: liquidity. In its Q2 2026 Quantitative Perspectives report, "System Reboot," PitchBook argues that US private equity faces a double bind — semi-liquid vehicles are straining under redemption demand just as an energy spike and LLM-driven software disruption complicate the buyout outlook.

Defense dealmaking is booming. Aerospace & defense (A&D) private equity deal count more than doubled in Q1 2026 to an estimated 143 transactions — a 123% jump from the 64 confirmed deals in Q1 2025 — even as total deal value fell, according to PitchBook's Q1 2026 Aerospace & Defense Report.

Most private strategies are facing a softer return environment heading into Q1 2026 — but commodities are the exception. PitchBook's Q1 2026 Private Capital Return Barometers, a factor-based "nowcast" of US fund returns, show natural resources surging to a Barometer Score of 72 (from 48 in September) even as private equity, venture, and private debt all slipped toward or below neutral.

Healthcare services dealmaking cooled to start the year, with PE activity down 16% year-over-year to 79 deals announced or closed in Q1 2026, per PitchBook's Q1 2026 Healthcare Services Report. The dip owes much to a tough comparison: L.E.K. Consulting's Andrew Kadar attributed it to robust Q1 2025 activity that "set a high YoY comparison bar," adding that sentiment at March's McDermott HPE Miami conference was "positive this year."

A familiar gap reopened in the latest performance data: across nearly every private strategy, one-year returns trailed 10-year results — with venture capital the standout exception. PitchBook's Q3 2025 Global Fund Performance Report (with preliminary Q4 2025 data) shows VC rebounding sharply as the public-market AI trade spilled into private valuations, driving a wide geographic gap in which North America outpaced a less AI-exposed Europe.

Private capital fundraising is still grinding lower. Trailing-12-month commitments fell to $1.23 trillion across 2,613 funds as of March 31, 2026 — down 15.5% in dollars and a striking 45.1% in fund count year-over-year, according to PitchBook's Q1 2026 Global Private Market Fundraising Report.

Starved of distributions, LPs are turning to co-investments to chase AI directly. A prolonged liquidity crunch — cumulative cash flows to LPs have run roughly negative $200 billion since 2022 — has elevated co-investment on both sides of the table, according to PitchBook's Q2 2026 analyst note, "LP Co-Investments in US VC: Chasing AI at a Price."

Jim Zelter, President of Apollo Global Management, argues at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2026 that the unprecedented investment grade capex boom may not translate into commensurate returns for equity holders, even as it powers the broader economy.

Pete Stavros, Co-head of Global Private Equity at KKR, argues that operational improvement is the most sustainable source of alpha in private equity

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt took the stage at the Milken Institute's 2026 Global Conference to deliver a unified message: the AI infrastructure buildout is not a bubble — it is a structural $10 trillion rewiring of the global economy, and private capital is the only force capable of funding it.

Consumer dealmaking just notched its weakest quarter on record. Consumer retail & services (CRS) private equity logged its fifth straight quarterly contraction in Q1 2026, falling to an estimated 181 deals (-11.9% QoQ, -37.6% YoY) and $16.4 billion in value — the lowest deal count in PitchBook's 12-year reporting window, per the Q1 2026 Consumer Retail & Services Report.

Reports of a "SaaS-pocalypse" are overstated in venture, at least by the headline figure: enterprise SaaS deal value hit a record $173 billion in Q1 2026, lifted by OpenAI's $122 billion and xAI's $20 billion mega-rounds. Yet beneath the record, PitchBook's Q1 2026 Enterprise SaaS VC Trends report finds the sector being quietly re-underwritten around a single threat — AI is breaking the per-seat pricing model that built modern software.

KKR sees private infrastructure as a HALO core holding, blending resilience with structural growth in a Regime Change era.

Howard Marks, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, Michael Arougheti, Co-Founder and CEO of Ares Management, and Amanda Lynam, Chief Credit Strategist in Goldman Sachs Research, argue that the current wave of private credit stress, including high-profile defaults, valuation concerns, and a surge in redemption requests, will reshape market share within the asset class rather than threaten its structural viability