PitchBook published its Q1 2024 Global Private Markets Fundraising Report, breaking down fundraising trends across seven private market strategies (private equity, venture capital, real estate, real assets, private debt, fund of funds, and secondaries).

Key takeaways include:

• Through Q1 2024, 521 private market funds raised a total of $295.0 billion across all asset classes. The first quarter’s fundraising was on par with the $298.4 billion raised in Q1 2023. However, fund counts fell by 45.9% YoY, exemplifying how concentrated fundraising has become: funds over the $1 billion mark currently account for 81.2% of Q1 2024 fundraising figures.
• Private equity funds made up the largest share of capital raised in Q1, at 52.9%. Despite a difficult exit environment and slow distributions, PE deal activity—and particularly add-on acquisitions—remained resilient, necessitating fund managers to maintain strong fundraising momentum to capitalize on these deals.
• While private debt and real estate are currently tracking below their historical proportions of total fundraising, this can be partially attributed to the fact that several large funds closed in 2023 in both asset classes. Thus, Q1 2024 represents a natural lull in the fundraising cycle.
• Venture capital fundraising is below its historical share of private capital fundraising and will likely see continued slowdowns in the coming quarters. VC’s Q1 2024 fundraising figure dropped 44.2% YoY, which itself was roughly half of what the strategy had attained in Q1 2022. In fact, VC fundraising through the first quarter has not been this slow since Q1 2015.
• Across regions, the proportion of capital out of Europe is currently trending above historical levels, representing 33.6% of overall capital through Q1 2024, while North America’s share has fallen to 53.2%.

A full copy of the report is available here.

Source: Pitchbook