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Thanks to you, our readers, for another strong year. In 2025, we expanded our research bench with key hires, broadening coverage across PE, fund strategies and performance, AI and the broader APAC region, among other areas.
To close out the year, here are our analysts' picks for the best research of the year.
We hope you find it useful as you look ahead! Here’s to exploring new insights in 2026. |
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Inaugural US Evergreen Fund Landscape report
Evergreen funds are reshaping the private markets, with assets doubling to nearly $500 billion since 2022 as investors seek institutional-like allocations blending public and private assets.
In 2025, regulatory changes encouraging private market exposure in retirement accounts are accelerating this shift. Fund managers have responded with a record number of new launches, and acquisitions and partnerships have proliferated across asset managers and distribution platforms. |
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Q3 2025 US VC Secondary Market Watch
The US venture secondary market is accelerating, reaching an estimated $94.9 billion in annual value across direct company stakes and continuation funds in Q3.
Record activity is being fueled by rising valuations for top startups and persistent liquidity pressure, pushing secondary exit values toward levels comparable with IPOs and M&A. |
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Increasing interest from Wall Street and retail investors is further propelling the market’s growth, highlighted by major acquisitions from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab.
With $3.7 trillion in value locked inside unicorns, the secondary market is poised to become a core pillar of the venture ecosystem, offering a growing path to liquidity as traditional exits remain uneven.
For additional context, you can explore earlier reports from our 2025 US VC Secondary Market Watch series, including our Q2 and Q1 updates, as well as our notes on GP-led secondaries and the state of the global market for institutional VC direct secondaries. |
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2029 Private Market Horizons
The 2029 Private Market Horizons report combines PitchBook’s extensive fund return and cash flow data to produce quantitative forecasts of assets under management over the next five years. This edition also debuts our forecasts for evergreen funds, spotlighting the rise of semiliquid structures.
The forecasts estimate that global AUM managed by GPs will eclipse $24 trillion by the end of the decade, driven by steady expansion in private wealth channels, evergreen fund structures and insurance capital. |
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| Our base case forecasts AUM will reach $24 trillion by 2029. |
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Incorporating a range of potential outcomes, the report highlights both the opportunities and constraints facing global private markets through the end of the decade.
Read the report |
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Healthcare Services AI Agents: A $155 Billion Opportunity
AI agents—software that can autonomously execute multistep tasks—are poised to become the next major platform layer in healthcare tools, as they are becoming increasingly capable of absorbing the administrative burden that has been ballooning across US healthcare for decades.
US healthcare administrative spending reached roughly $950 billion in 2019, according to McKinsey, and could exceed $1.5 trillion by 2030 under conservative growth assumptions.
If AI agents capture just 10% of that spending, the resulting addressable market reaches $155 billion annually. More importantly, if AI reduces total administrative costs by 30%, net systemwide savings could exceed $300 billion per year—an outcome with material implications for provider margins, payer cost trends and labor dynamics.
Read the report |
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How Much Alpha Is There in Private Markets?
Investors often stress the importance of manager selection in private markets, but measuring its true impact on portfolio performance can be challenging.
This analyst note tries to get a clearer picture of alpha opportunities in private markets using a historical simulation of PE buyout, VC, private debt and real estate allocations within a diversified multi-asset portfolio. |
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By modeling different scenarios of private fund selection skill—ranging from moderate improvements to underperformer avoidance—we estimate how much performance can improve compared with random selection.
Read the report |
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The CVC paradox: High investment activity, low acquisition rates by corporate sponsors
Corporate venture capital has been an undisputed force in the US venture ecosystem.
Since 2014, it has accounted for more than 46% of total VC deal value and 21% of deal count. Yet despite having deployed massive capital, CVCs haven’t converted many of their portfolio companies into acquisitions.
This analyst note examines 25 years of CVC activity, exploring the reasons why M&A may not be the end goal for many of these investors.
It lays out some of the strategic and financial considerations for these investors and examines how a changing M&A landscape may impact potential CVC-backed acquisitions.
Read the report |
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Private credit research from PitchBook LCD
Private markets have shown an extremely active focus on private credit this year, and our PitchBook LCD team continues to bring comprehensive data and research across asset class | | | | | | | |
