Private equity secondaries fundraising boosted by surge in deals

Global fundraising totals for private equity secondaries funds increased for a third consecutive year in 2025 as institutional investors sought more exposure to the booming secondaries market.

Capital commitments increased 6.4% to $92.9 billion from $87.32 billion in 2024 for funds targeting investments in buyout, growth capital and venture secondaries, according to With Intelligence data. It was the largest annual fundraising total for private equity secondaries funds since at least 2020.

Capital is chasing a fast-growing opportunity in the wider secondaries marketplace, where stakes in private equity, private credit and other illiquid alternative assets are traded by buyers and sellers, typically at a discount to the fund's estimated value. Global secondaries transaction value increased 41% year over year to a record $226 billion in 2025, according to investment bank Evercore Inc.

"It has been a record year partly because secondaries managers have been so successful raising capital," said Daniel Roddick, founder of private equity placement and secondaries advisory Ely Place Partners Ltd.

Growing fund sizes

The fundraising success in 2025 included Ardian SAS closing on $30 billion for Ardian Secondary Fund IX, the largest-ever private equity secondaries fund, according to the firm. It was also the largest private equity fund of any kind to close in 2025. Ardian said the fund would target "high-quality private equity assets," primarily in North America and Western Europe.

Three secondary funds currently in the market are targeting final closes at or above $20 billion: Lexington Capital Partners XI LP , Blackstone Strategic Partners X and Dover Street XII LP.

Exit pressure

Increasing secondaries fundraising contrasts with the decline in overall private equity fundraising. The common factor in both trends is the lack of portfolio company exits from primary private equity funds as dealmaking slowed in 2022 and 2023, stifling the flow of profits distributed to private equity investors, known as limited partners (LPs).

The distributions are a critical source of liquidity for LPs, allowing them to rebalance their investment portfolios and commit capital to new private equity funds. As mounting liquidity pressures pushed more LPs to offload their stakes in the secondary market, the value of LP stake sales more than doubled to $120 billion in 2025 from $55 billion in 2022, according to Evercore.

"If you can sell [private equity fund stakes], even at a discount, and redeploy that capital in other ways that are going to give you a higher return, it's a trade that makes sense," said Campbell Lutyens partner Gerald Cooper, who co-heads the firm's global secondary advisories practice.

Some of the capital is redeployed into secondaries funds.

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Even with exits on the upswing, LPs are increasingly turning to the secondary market for proactive portfolio management, Cooper said.

Secondaries transactions initiated by private equity fund managers, known as general partners (GPs), have grown even faster than LP-led transactions, rising to $106 billion in 2025 from $48 billion in 2022, according to Evercore. GP-led secondaries transactions shift one or more portfolio companies from a private equity fund to a so-called continuation vehicle, an event that allows old investors to cash out and new investors to join.

GPs often pitch continuation vehicles as a way to maintain control of portfolio companies on a growth trajectory. But they can also be used to satisfy LP demands for liquidity, Cooper said.

"It's used as an offensive tool now as opposed to a defensive tool," Cooper said.

Outlook

Secondaries transaction volumes are likely to moderate after their exceptional growth in 2025, said Nigel Dawn, global head of Evercore's private capital advisory group. But the fundraising outlook remains strong as more institutional investors recognize secondaries' potential.

"Secondaries are increasingly embedded in both LP portfolio management and GP liquidity planning, continuation vehicles have become a permanent feature of the market and ongoing innovation in data, analytics and execution continues to expand the opportunity set," Dawn said.

Institutional investors eager to get in on the action "are still building their initial allocations" to secondaries, according to an October 2025 report issued by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The investment bank surveyed LPs and found private equity secondaries are one of the most underallocated strategies in LP investment portfolios, with about 45% of LPs under their target allocation to the asset class.

Secondaries look particularly attractive to investors at a time when their primary investments are slow to return distributions, Cooper said.

"Capital that would have gone into the primary, direct market, has gone into secondary funds," Cooper said.

With Intelligence is a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.