This year’s PEI 300 – our annual ranking of the five‑year fundraising totals of the world’s largest private equity firms – shows fundraising returning to near‑normal levels after a muted 2025. Capital raised hit a record $3.55 trillion, an 8 percent increase on last year, compared with just 0.37 percent growth in 2025.

Technology managers faced a tougher environment, with several slipping down the ranking. Meanwhile, private wealth continues to gain momentum as more firms prioritise it as a source of capital.

To unpack what this means for the industry, PEI Group’s senior content producer Evie Rusman is joined by Adam Le, senior editor for private equity, and Kristina Savcenkova, research manager. Together, they break down the numbers and explore what they signal about the evolving private equity landscape.

This is the third episode in Private Equity International’s new Data Dive miniseries, where we dig into our proprietary data, surveys and rankings, as well as recent market data sets, to understand what investors and fund managers are thinking, where capital is moving and how the asset class is evolving.

Listen to previous episodes here and stay tuned for upcoming episodes, which will provide insight into affiliate title Private Funds CFO’s Fees and Expenses Survey 2026 and the 2026 edition of PEI’s Global Investor 150 ranking.

This episode is sponsored by AlixPartners

The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is returning for its fifth season, and this year, leading industry experts will share their advice on how to generate successful exits during a climate defined by their scarcity.

In this teaser episode, we set the stage by exploring all the factors that make exits so elusive right now. We’ll be discussing both the forces GPs can control, and those they can’t – from broader market conditions to decisions around talent, tech and value creation. The good news is that there is a playbook to address the headwinds. The bad news is that it leaves little margin for error and requires unwavering focus, creativity and discipline.

In this episode:

• Jason McDannold is co-lead of the Americas private equity practice at AlixPartners
• Ted Bililies is global leader of transformative leadership at AlixPartners
• Gregg Jankowski is global co-leader of data and visualization at AlixPartners

This episode is sponsored by FTV Capital and J.C. Flowers & Co

Financial services is one of the most active sectors in private equity dealmaking, but getting the highest returns requires deep sector expertise, especially in today's challenging exit environment.

In this episode, PE Hub editor-in-chief Mary Kathleen Flynn speaks with Peter Yordán, a managing director of J.C. Flowers & Co, and Kyle Griswold, a partner at FTV Capital, to find out what makes financial services different from other sectors. We also hear their strategies for successful dealmaking, including how AI is changing the landscape.