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This year has seen several blue-chip private equity firms sell small pieces of themselves. But the thing that makes these businesses attractive—their predictable, long-term profitability—is also the thing that makes them hard to exit.
Secondaries pioneer Ardian, the investment arm of sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, General Catalyst, and Accel-KKR all sold minority stakes in 2025, suggesting there are still plenty of coveted managers looking for backing, almost 20 years after Goldman Sachs raised the industry’s first dedicated GP stakes fund.
The GP stakes market has emerged as a way for fund managers to secure funding and strategic partnerships without relinquishing control. There were $3.4 billion of GP stakes deals globally in 2024, the highest level since the record year of 2021, when $7.9 billion of deals were recorded, according to PitchBook data.
A manager might bring in a minority investor to help expand its stable of LP relationships or launch new products. GP stakes investments are increasingly being used to facilitate succession planning, for example, to help fund the GP commitments of a firm’s future leaders.
I'm Rod James, and this is The Weekend Pitch. Feel free to contact me at rod.james@pitchbook.com.
No matter how large and institutionalized the GP stakes market gets, however, there has been a persistent murmur from potential and existing investors: How do I exit these investments?
Growing numbers of fund managers and bankers believe that evergreen funds, a category that has enjoyed phenomenal recent growth, could be the answer. |
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| A message from Fidelity Private Shares |
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You probably weren’t planning to get a 409A valuation—someone likely told you to get one. Maybe it was your lawyer, investor, or founder friend. This guide breaks down what a 409A valuation is, why it matters, and how to make sure you’re not taking a risky shortcut.
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| (Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images) |
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The Italian technology conglomerate Bending Spoons made headlines when it announced plans to purchase Eventbrite, a San Francisco-based ticketing and event management software company, for $500 million. Bending Spoons has risen from relative obscurity, hitting a hot streak of acquisitions over the past four months. It made a huge splash when it agreed to buy which iconic early web company in October for $2.8 billion?
A) AOL
B) MapQuest
C) Craigslist
D) Blogger
Find your answer at the bottom of The Weekend Pitch! |
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A selection from our most-read articles of the past few days.
- Running is a cheap sport, right? Not if VCs have anything to say about it. More venture capital than ever is being pumped into the running industry, from energy gels to carbon-plated shoes. Read the full story
- The median number of LPs committing to a VC fund has slowed dramatically as GPs lean more heavily on anchor checks, according to a new Carta report. Get the details
- Even as financial markets face greater uncertainty, M&A activity has remained resilient, driven partly by increasing willingness among dealmakers to use mechanisms such as earnouts to help close transactions. Full report
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“The biggest challenges are access to capital and access to power. For the industry, if we continue at the same pace of demand growth, power will become—and already has become—a gating item.”
—-Leslie Golden, the global head of capital formation and investor relations at DigitalBridge, a longtime player in the digital infrastructure landscape, speaking with PitchBook’s Madeline Shi on the challenges facing the data center market. Read the Q&A here. |
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Keep an eye out for these insights and research reports coming out this week:
- 2026 AI Tech Outlook
- Q3 2025 Defense Tech VC Trends
- 2026 Industry Research PE Outlook
- Q3 2025 Enterprise SaaS M&A Review
- Q3 2025 India Snapshot
- H1 2025 Real Assets Report
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Answer: A
Bending Spoons made headlines in October when it entered into an agreement to purchase AOL, the early internet email and browser company, from Yahoo for $2.8 billion. The company has been on a relentless pursuit to balloon its portfolio by taking a PE-like approach to growing companies—with a twist. Read more about the Eventbrite deal and Bending Spoons in Jacob Robbins’ latest here. |
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This edition of The Weekend Pitch was written by Rod James and Jacob Robbins. It was edited by Andrew Woodman.
Were you forwarded The Weekend Pitch? Sign up at pitchbook.com/subscribe. |
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