The private credit shakeout will sort managers by funding source rather than by underwriting quality alone. Kevin McKeon, Head of the US Financial Services Practice at Odgers, makes the argument on Leading Through Uncertainty.

Private equity's core promise held for roughly three decades and then broke. Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, whose analysis of US buyout funds anchors a report on Bloomberg Television, finds outperformance against public markets running from the 1990s through 2018 and reversing from 2019. Two forces did it. Big tech pushed public market returns higher, and the prices paid during the boom made positions harder to exit. The result sits in in

Capital concentration at the top of infrastructure has become the middle market's structural advantage rather than its problem. Stuart Waugh, Managing Partner of Northleaf Capital Partners, argues this in an interview on the How I Invest Podcast.

The stress surfacing across private markets is a dispersion problem inside portfolios, and the era when weak managers posted numbers close to strong ones has closed. Tony Tutrone, Global Head of Private Markets at Neuberger Berman, argues this in an interview on CNBC.

The expansion in private credit that matters is happening above the middle market, in investment grade rated assets currently sitting in liquid public markets. John Waldron, President and COO of Goldman Sachs, makes the case on The Bridge by iCapital.

AI readiness has moved into entry diligence, and it now helps decide whether a deal proceeds at all rather than what happens after close. Rachel Barton, Global Lead for CEO Advisory and Private Equity at Accenture, argues this in an episode of Private Markets 360. Buyers are applying digital maturity and AI disruption assessments alongside standard diligence, testing data quality, technology architecture, and whether the business itself is a plausible casualty. The trigger wa

The binding constraint in private markets has moved from raising capital to originating assets, and firms that keep organizing around fundraising are solving a problem that no longer exists. Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, argues this in an interview with iCapital CEO Lawrence Calcano on The 19th Hole.

Space companies raised more in six months than in all of last year, and the money went to production capacity rather than to technical novelty. First half investment reached $11.3 billion across 244 deals, above the $10.1 billion invested across 433 deals in 2025, according to PitchBook's 2026 Vertical Snapshot: Space Tech, published August 25 under the subtitle Capital moves to the factory floor.

European founders are raising larger rounds at lower prices, and their American counterparts are doing precisely the reverse. Median European deal value rose 25% year on year to EUR 2.5 million while the median European pre money valuation fell 5.4% to EUR 7.5 million, against US deal sizes down 13.5% and US valuations up 45%, according to PitchBook's Q2 2026 European VC Valuations Report, published August 20. That divergence repeats inside Europe itself. Pre seed and seed va

Fewer foodtech companies are raising money than at any point on record, and the ones that clear are commanding more. First half investment reached $3.6 billion across 359 deals, a pace that annualises to roughly $7.2 billion and would land 15.3% below last year's $8.5 billion, per PitchBook's H1 2026 Foodtech Report, published August 27. The correction that began three years ago has still not found a floor.

Strip out three transactions and mobility tech is shrinking, not growing. First half deal value came in at $32.1 billion, a 23% increase over the same period last year, but $16 billion of that arrived in a single Waymo round on February 2, with Saronic and Shield AI supplying most of the rest, according to PitchBook's H1 2026 Mobility Tech Report, published August 25. Deal count fell over the same period, to 218 from 250.

Private markets have never been larger and have rarely returned less cash. Global alternative assets under management reached $21.6 trillion, roughly four times the 2010 level, while the US distribution rate for private equity sits at 14% of beginning net asset value against a long run average of 24%, according to J.P. Morgan Asset Management's Guide to Alternatives for 3Q 2026.

Defence deal count nearly quintupled in a year while deal value did not come close to keeping up, which means sponsors are buying many more companies and paying far less for each.

Datacenter construction grew 46% year on year in the second quarter, faster than any other construction type, and the private equity money chasing it arrived through 529 separate transactions rather than a handful of large ones.

Most of the companies funded at the peak of APAC's venture boom are still alive, and that turns out to be the least informative fact about them.

The economics of owning a company beat the economics of managing a fund, because ownership keeps 100% of the profit and never has to be re-raised. Henry Kravis, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of KKR, makes the case in a fireside chat at Columbia Business School.

Roughly 90 to 95% of the capital in a Blackstone data center goes into the ground only after one of the largest technology companies in the world has signed a 15-year lease. Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer at Blackstone, describes the mechanic in an interview on The CEO Signal.

Compute cost is rising rather than falling as AI scales, which makes routing work to the cheapest sufficient model the central engineering problem for enterprise software. Monti Saroya, Senior Managing Director and Co Head of the Flagship Fund at Vista Equity Partners, argues this in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream.

The operational improvement now required to generate private equity returns is most accessible in corporate carveouts, because the businesses have been systematically underinvested and the opportunities are identifiable to a buyer who has done it repeatedly.

The alternatives industry will follow the path of the mutual fund business, where beta gets established and the subsequent competition runs on specialisation and focus. Paul Desmarais III, Co Founder, Chairman and CEO of Sagard, argues this in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream.