Methodology & Data Sources
This ranking uses a structured evaluation framework to identify the most active and influential growth equity firms globally, based on verifiable data across three core inputs.
1. Ranking Framework
Firms are assessed using three inputs:
- Growth-focused AUM: Latest reported AUM from regulatory filings, annual reports, and firm disclosures. Where a firm operates a dedicated growth equity vehicle within a larger platform, that distinction is noted in the profile. AUM reflects scale, not performance.
- Fundraising momentum (2023–2025): Evaluated through recent fund closes, oversubscription levels, and consistency of capital raising across growth equity strategies.
- Deal activity (last 24 months): Includes named growth investments, minority rounds, growth buyouts, and pre-IPO transactions, weighted by size, sector relevance, and geographic reach.
2. Inclusion Criteria
Firms are included if they meet at least one of the following:
- Operate a dedicated growth equity strategy with $10B+ in AUM
- Run an active global or multi-regional growth investment platform
- Maintain consistent deployment at Series B stage and beyond across multiple sectors
Venture-only funds and buyout-only firms without a dedicated growth vehicle are excluded.
3. Data Sources (Cross-Verified)
Every data point is validated using two or more of the following:
- Regulatory filings: SEC, FCA, Companies House
- Industry databases: PitchBook, Preqin, S&P Global, Crunchbase
- Firm disclosures: fund announcements, press releases, portfolio pages
- Financial media: Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, TechCrunch
- PEL directory: firm-verified submissions and historical profiles
4. AUM Format
Platform AUM figures are used where firms operate growth equity as part of a larger multi-strategy platform. In those cases, the profile notes whether the AUM figure refers to the full platform or the dedicated growth vehicle. Estimates are noted where exact disclosures are unavailable.
Top Growth Equity Firms by AUM and Investment Focus
Below is a comparative overview of leading growth equity firms globally, ranked by approximate AUM, sector focus, and geographic reach within the broader private markets equity landscape. These firms typically invest in private companies with proven revenue models, strong growth drivers, and clear pathways to significant growth across international markets.
In-Depth Profiles: Top Growth Equity Firms
1. Insight Partners
Snapshot: ~$90B+ AUM, headquartered in New York City, founded in 1995.
Investing focus: Insight invests across enterprise software, SaaS, cybersecurity, fintech, and data infrastructure, backing companies from Series B through pre-IPO. The firm pairs minority growth capital with hands-on operational support through its ScaleUp program, which provides portfolio companies with dedicated resources across talent, marketing, and go-to-market execution.
Deal anchor: In December 2024, Insight co-led Databricks' $10B funding round, the largest venture capital raise of 2024, alongside Thrive Capital, at a $62B valuation.
2026 angle: Insight enters 2026 deploying from a freshly closed $12.5B Fund XIII, with a more selective entry bar than its 2021 vintage. The firm is prioritizing companies with durable ARR growth and clear paths to profitability. Its operational platform remains a genuine differentiator for software founders scaling beyond $50M ARR.
2. General Atlantic
Snapshot: ~$118B+ AUM, headquartered in New York City, founded in 1980.
Investing focus: General Atlantic is a pure-play global growth equity firm investing across technology, consumer, financial services, and healthcare. It targets market-leading businesses at Series C and beyond, with particular strength in backing companies entering international expansion phases through locally embedded regional teams.
Deal anchor: General Atlantic co-led SHEIN's $2B funding round at a $66B valuation, alongside Sequoia China and Mubadala, which was one of the largest growth rounds for a consumer technology company that year.
2026 angle: General Atlantic’s edge is regional depth. Locally embedded teams across North America, Europe, India, and Latin America provide sourcing access that generalist growth funds cannot replicate. For founders pursuing cross-border expansion, few firms offer a comparable combination of check size and on-the-ground operational presence.
3. TPG Growth
Snapshot: ~$32B+ AUM (growth platform), headquartered in San Francisco, founded as TPG's growth equity arm in 2004.
Investing focus: TPG Growth backs expansion-stage companies across technology, healthcare, consumer, and tech-enabled services, focusing on businesses transitioning from high growth to market leadership. The platform also includes The Rise Fund, TPG's impact-focused growth vehicle targeting climate, education, and healthcare.
Deal anchor: TPG Growth backed Airbnb during its pre-IPO scaling phase, deploying growth capital as the company expanded internationally ahead of its 2020 listing, making it one of the most successful growth equity-backed IPOs in recent history.
2026 angle: TPG Growth’s differentiation is access to a $303B+ global platform. Portfolio companies gain cross-platform relationships spanning infrastructure, healthcare, and credit, not just growth equity expertise. In a market where operational value creation is increasingly expected from investors, TPG’s cross-platform support is a credible and structural advantage.
4. KKR Growth Equity
Snapshot: ~$550B+ total platform AUM, headquartered in New York City. KKR Growth Equity operates as a dedicated vehicle within KKR's broader private equity business, targeting high-growth companies globally.
Investing focus: Enterprise technology, fintech, digital infrastructure, and software-driven businesses with strong revenue growth and defensible market positions.
Deal anchor: KKR made a significant minority growth investment in Epic Games, backing one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world at a $31.5B valuation. This reinforces its focus on large-scale, platform-defining digital businesses.
2026 angle: KKR’s growth equity strategy benefits from one of the deepest global networks in private markets. Portfolio companies gain access to KKR’s capital markets expertise, geographic reach, and cross-portfolio ecosystem, which are advantages that standalone growth equity funds cannot replicate at the same scale.
5. Summit Partners
Snapshot: ~$44B+ AUM, headquartered in Boston, founded in 1984.
Investing focus: Summit Partners is a growth equity specialist backing profitable, capital-efficient businesses across technology, healthcare, and life sciences. It is known for reaching founders before they are actively fundraising, through a high-velocity non-auction sourcing model.
Deal anchor: Summit led Klaviyo’s $150M Series B in 2019, and followed on in subsequent rounds. At Klaviyo’s 2023 IPO, Summit held a ~21% stake valued at approximately $1.7B. This represents a 7x return on its investment, making it one of the strongest growth equity outcomes of that year.
2026 angle: Summit’s sourcing model is its clearest edge. The firm reaches founders before they are in market, producing better entry points and stronger alignment than auction-driven processes. For profitable or near-profitable founders who want minority growth capital without buyout governance overhead, Summit is among the most relevant firms to target.
6. Warburg Pincus (Growth Investments)
Snapshot: ~$100B+ AUM, headquartered in New York City, founded in 1966.
Investing focus: Warburg Pincus deploys growth-oriented capital across financial services, technology, healthcare, consumer, and energy, with a strong presence in Asia and Latin America. It invests across minority and majority structures, giving it flexibility that pure growth equity firms often lack.
Deal anchor: In October 2025, Warburg Pincus announced a voluntary public takeover offer for PSI Software SE, a German energy and industrial software company, at EUR 45 per share. This values PSI at approximately EUR 702M and represents an 84% premium to the unaffected share price.
2026 angle: Warburg Pincus enters 2026 with one of the longest active investment track records in global growth equity. Its willingness to hold positions for extended periods and its emerging markets depth make it particularly relevant for companies with global ambitions beyond saturated Western markets.
7. TA Associates
Snapshot: ~$65B+ AUM, headquartered in Boston, founded in 1968.
Investing focus: TA Associates is a global growth equity firm specializing in software, financial services, healthcare, and technology-enabled businesses. It primarily makes minority investments in profitable or near-profitable companies, with flexibility to structure investments as minority stakes, majority buyouts, or recapitalizations.
Deal anchor: TA Associates led a majority investment in ZoomInfo in 2019, backing the B2B intelligence platform through its scale-up phase ahead of its 2020 IPO at a $8.2B valuation. This was one of the strongest enterprise software public market debuts of that cycle.
2026 angle: TA’s structural flexibility is its clearest differentiator. It can structure deals in ways that pure growth equity funds cannot, making it relevant across a wider range of ownership situations. It was ranked the most active technology PE acquirer in 2024 by AGC Partners, reflecting consistent deployment even in a slower deal environment.
8. Silver Lake
Snapshot: ~$110B+ AUM, headquartered in Menlo Park, founded in 1999.
Investing focus: Silver Lake concentrates on large-scale technology, digital economy, and technology-enabled platform businesses. It operates across growth equity, buyouts, and credit, enabling deal structures that traditional growth equity funds cannot match.
Deal anchor: Silver Lake completed the $25B take-private of Endeavor Group Holdings in March 2025, acquiring the global sports and entertainment company behind WME and TKO Group in what it described as the largest private equity sponsor take-private in over a decade and the largest ever in the media and entertainment sector.
2026 angle: Silver Lake operates at the top end of technology and growth investing. In 2026, its edge lies in scale, for example, the ability to write $500M+ checks in a single transaction combined with deep sector expertise. For large, late-stage companies preparing for IPO or major strategic transactions, Silver Lake is one of a small number of investors that can deliver both the capital and meaningful strategic value at that size.
9. Apax Growth
Snapshot: ~$51B+ platform AUM, headquartered in London. Apax Growth operates as the dedicated growth equity vehicle of Apax Partners, targeting high-growth technology and digital businesses at expansion stage.
Investing focus: Software, digital services, and technology-enabled businesses across Europe and North America, with a focus on B2B software companies with enterprise customer bases and high net revenue retention.
Deal anchor: Apax Growth backed Genius Sports, a sports data and technology company, supporting its growth ahead of its 2021 SPAC listing. This demonstrates its ability to back technology platforms serving large, regulated industries through scale-up phases.
2026 angle: Apax Growth’s advantage is its position within the broader Apax Partners platform, giving growth-stage companies access to over 50 years of sector relationships in tech, healthcare, and services across Europe. For European and transatlantic founders seeking a growth investor with genuine local market depth, Apax is one of the stronger options.
10. Vitruvian Partners
Snapshot: ~$17.5B+ AUM, headquartered in London, founded in 2006. Vitruvian closed its fifth fund (VIP V) at a hard cap of EUR 7.3B in September 2024, its largest to date.
Investing focus: Vitruvian backs high-growth technology businesses across fintech, SaaS, consumer internet, healthcare technology, and digital platforms, with a primary focus on Europe and a growing global mandate including North America and Asia.
Deal anchor: In September 2025, Vitruvian made a $637M strategic investment in DeepIntent, the leading healthcare demand-side platform, acquiring a majority stake to accelerate the company’s AI-powered expansion across the US life sciences market.
2026 angle: Vitruvian enters 2026 deploying from its largest ever fund, with a significantly expanded global footprint across ten office locations. Its combination of European sourcing depth, a growing North American and Asian presence, and a track record of backing category-defining companies from scale-up through IPO makes it one of the most relevant growth investors for founders who want a firm that has grown alongside its portfolio rather than parachuted in at scale.
Emerging Growth Equity Firms to Watch in 2026
The mid-market growth equity segment is expanding rapidly. A new group of firms is gaining traction through sector-focused strategies, disciplined entry criteria, and active deployment in expansion-stage companies that larger funds increasingly overlook.
For founders raising at Series B and below $100M in revenue, these firms often offer better sector fit, faster decisions, and more hands-on operational support than platform-scale investors.
1. PSG Equity
PSG Equity is a software-focused growth equity firm managing ~$28B+ in assets, investing in B2B SaaS, payments, workflow automation, and data-driven platforms. The firm is highly active in sub-$200M enterprise value transactions, with portfolio companies across North America and Europe spanning both vertical and horizontal software categories.
PSG’s momentum in 2025 comes from its platform-and-add-on strategy and deep domain-specific operating playbooks. The firm pairs growth capital with a structured M&A support capability, helping portfolio companies pursue acquisitions as a primary growth lever, a combination that resonates strongly with founder-led software businesses looking to consolidate fragmented markets.
PSG closed two funds totaling $8B in 2025, bringing total AUM to over $28B, reflecting sustained LP demand for its software-focused approach.
2. FTV Capital
FTV Capital is a sector-specialist growth equity firm with ~$10.2B in total capital raised, investing exclusively in enterprise and financial technology, including payments, fintech infrastructure, wealth management platforms, and compliance technology. The firm targets companies with equity checks ranging from $20M to $300M, operating across both control and minority structures.
FTV’s momentum in 2026 is driven by a record 2024 deployment year and a freshly closed $4.05B raise across two complementary funds: its oversubscribed eighth flagship fund (FTV VIII at $3.4B) and FTV Ascend I ($651M), a new vehicle dedicated to smaller-check fintech investments.
In a challenging fundraising environment where many generalist GPs struggled, FTV’s oversubscription signals strong LP confidence in sector-specialist growth investing. Its Global Partner Network, a curated group of senior executives and strategic advisors across financial services, provides proprietary deal flow and commercial pull-through that generalist firms cannot replicate.
3. Five Elms Capital
Five Elms Capital is a B2B SaaS-focused growth equity firm managing ~$3B+ in assets, backing software companies that have achieved product-market fit and are ready to accelerate customer acquisition and international expansion. The firm invests primarily across North America and takes a founder-friendly approach, typically making minority investments without requiring board control.
Five Elms’ momentum in 2025 comes from its concentrated focus on vertical and horizontal SaaS businesses with strong net revenue retention. This combines with a sourcing model that reaches bootstrapped or lightly funded founders before they engage larger platforms.
For software founders at $3M to $20M ARR who want a specialist investor rather than a generalist fund, Five Elms operates in a segment of the market with limited institutional competition and strong alignment between firm incentives and founder goals.
4. Accel-KKR
Accel-KKR is a technology-focused private equity firm managing ~$20B+ in assets, investing in middle-market software and technology-enabled services businesses across North America and Europe. The firm targets companies with $10M to $200M in revenue and operates across both growth equity and buyout strategies, giving it flexibility across a wider range of ownership situations than pure growth equity funds.
Accel-KKR’s momentum in 2026 comes from its combination of sector depth and operational execution. The firm runs dedicated functional teams across sales, marketing, product, and finance that embed with portfolio companies post-investment, a model that produces measurable revenue acceleration rather than passive capital.
Its scale in the middle-market software segment, where execution support is often more valuable than capital alone, continues to attract both founders and LPs looking for consistent compounders rather than home-run bets.
Best Growth Equity Firms by Sector
Growth equity firms often develop deep specialization over time, which translates into better sourcing, faster diligence, and more relevant operational support. The firms below represent the strongest options within each category based on track record and current deployment activity.
Technology and Enterprise Software
Founders benefit most from investors with deep software operating playbooks and a track record of scaling SaaS businesses from growth to IPO.
Fintech and Financial Services
Sector-specialist investors here provide access to strategic networks across banks, insurance companies, and enterprise buyers that generalist growth funds cannot replicate.
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Healthcare growth companies need investors with clinical and regulatory expertise alongside capital.
Consumer and Digital Platforms
Consumer-focused founders benefit from investors with brand-building expertise and experience scaling businesses across international markets.
Founders Seeking Pure Minority Growth Capital
For founders who want institutional growth capital without board control or buyout governance structures.
2026 Market Trends in Growth Equity
Growth equity enters 2026 with real momentum behind it, but in a more selective and quality-driven form than the cycle that preceded it. After two years of recalibration, deployment is recovering, liquidity is returning, and capital is concentrating around firms and companies that can demonstrate durable fundamentals rather than growth at any cost.
Growth Equity is Gaining Ground Within Private Markets
Growth funds accounted for 22% of US private equity capital raised in 2025, the highest level in three years, and growth capital represented 10.4% of total PE deal value as of Q3 2025, above the 10-year average of 9.8%.
This reflects a structural shift: as traditional buyouts remain constrained by valuation gaps and leverage limitations, LPs are increasingly directing capital toward growth-oriented strategies that offer upside without full control complexity. 24% of all growth funds now exceed $1 billion in size, up from just 10% in 2020 and 4% in 2015, reflecting the maturation of the asset class and a clear move toward larger vehicles and bigger check sizes.
Fundraising is Bifurcated and Consolidating
Fundraising conditions improved in 2025 but remained highly polarized. Large, established managers with strong track records, clear sector focus, and demonstrated distributions were still able to raise capital, while others saw extended cycles and smaller fund sizes, with funds closing at an average 19% discount to their targets in 2025.
For growth equity specifically, this dynamic rewards sector specialists and platform-scale firms over generalist mid-market managers without a differentiated thesis. 57% of GPs expect fundraising conditions to materially improve 2026.
2025 was the Strongest Deployment Year for Growth Equity Since 2021
Through 2025, equity capital investments in late-stage private companies reached $350 billion, surpassing levels seen in recent years. In fact, 43 transactions were above $1 billion, compared to 32 in 2024, according to Capstone Market’s Equity Capital Markets Update 2026 report. AI and digital infrastructure drove a significant portion of that volume, but deal activity broadened across professional services, aerospace and defense, and fintech as confidence returned.
The same report also states that median valuations for North American growth transactions reached $260 million in 2025, compared to $200 million in 2024. This reflects improved investor sentiment and stronger public market comparables.
Hot Sectors for Growth Capital Allocation
Capital allocation in 2026 is being driven by structural themes rather than short-term cycles. Technology remains the dominant sector, with AI infrastructure, vertical SaaS, cybersecurity, and cloud-native platforms attracting the largest share of growth equity.
Healthcare and life sciences continue to draw consistent capital, particularly in diagnostics, health technology, and clinical research platforms.
Fintech and financial services infrastructure are benefiting from regulatory tailwinds and the digitization of financial distribution.
Industrial technology, including automation, advanced manufacturing, and defense-adjacent software, is emerging as a meaningful growth equity target as digital transformation accelerates in sectors that have historically been underinvested.
Secondaries are Becoming a Core Liquidity Tool
Secondary transactions, which reached approximately $160 billion in 2024, were projected to have exceeded $210 billion in 2025. For growth equity specifically, this matters because it gives founders, early investors, and employees a viable liquidity path without requiring a full exit or IPO.
Harvard’s Venture Capital Outlook 2026 report also stated that VC and growth equity secondaries remain underpenetrated relative to other private equity strategies, with only around 2% of unicorn market value traded on the secondary market. This suggests significant room for this market to grow as an established liquidity mechanism in 2026 and beyond.
What Comes Next
Based on EY’s Private Equity Pulse report (Q4 2025), 79% of GPs expect PE acquisitions to increase over the next six months, and 73% expect exit deal volumes to increase, the highest reading since tracking began. As distributions resume and LP liquidity constraints ease, the capital recycling that funds the next wave of growth equity deployment is already underway.
The firms best positioned for 2026 are those that combine sector conviction with operational value creation, offer flexible ownership structures, and have the fundraising track record to attract LP capital in a consolidating market.
Limitations & Data Caveats
Growth equity rankings require careful interpretation. Several structural limitations affect the accuracy and comparability of firm-level data, and users should understand the following caveats before using this list to make investment or fundraising decisions.
AUM Does Not Equal Performance
Assets under management indicate the scale of a growth equity firm, not the quality of its returns. Large AUM figures can be influenced by strategy mix, platform breadth, or multi-asset expansion rather than outperformance in growth equity specifically.
Many firms on this list manage capital across buyout, credit, and other strategies alongside their growth equity vehicles. For those firms, the AUM figure reflects the full platform unless otherwise noted in the profile. Smaller, sector-focused growth equity firms may deliver superior returns despite managing significantly less capital.
AUM is used here as a structural metric and a proxy for deployment capacity, not as a measure of investment quality or vintage performance.
Platform AUM vs. Dedicated Growth Equity AUM
Several firms on this list, including KKR, TPG, and Warburg Pincus, operate growth equity as a dedicated vehicle or strategy within a much larger multi-asset platform. In those cases, the AUM figure cited reflects total platform AUM unless the growth equity vehicle has a separately disclosed figure.
This makes direct AUM comparisons across firms inherently imprecise. Where a firm has disclosed a standalone growth equity fund size, that figure is noted in the profile.
Reporting Lag in Private Markets
Growth equity firms operate with limited real-time disclosure. Fundraising totals, AUM updates, and deal values often lag by several quarters depending on regulatory requirements, fund structures, and geographic reporting standards.
Portfolio companies within growth equity funds rarely publish updated financials, and exit data may remain undisclosed or partially reported for extended periods. Certain figures within this ranking may therefore reflect time-imperfect information even when sourced from credible institutions.
Rankings are Directional, Not Permanent
Growth equity rankings shift as firms raise new funds, deploy capital, and generate exits. A firm’s position on this list reflects its activity and scale at the time of publication and should be treated as directional rather than definitive.
This list is refreshed periodically to reflect material changes in fundraising, deployment, and market position.
Find the Right Growth Equity Firms Faster
The firms on this list represent the top of the global growth equity market. But the right partner depends on factors a ranking alone cannot capture:
- Sector fit
- Check size
- Ownership preference
- Geographic mandate
- Stage of growth
PEL AI Search lets you filter directly across the investor database using these criteria. It surfaces a targeted shortlist based on your specific situation, rather than a generic list to work through manually.
The firms profiled here are a starting point. The right shortlist is specific to your company.
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