Why Is Scale Becoming a Competitive Advantage in Private Market Secondaries?

The global secondaries market is getting larger, but capital alone may no longer be enough to compete. As transaction sizes grow and secondaries expand across asset classes, scale increasingly brings something more valuable: information, specialised capabilities and the ability to execute complex transactions quickly.

TL;DR

• The world’s 50 largest secondaries managers raised $584.6 billion between 2021 and 2025, nearly 12% more than the previous five-year ranking, according to Private Equity International’s 2026 Secondaries Investor 50.
• Scale is increasingly about more than fund size. Larger platforms can invest more heavily in proprietary data, specialised teams, technology and transaction execution.
• The market itself is broadening beyond traditional private equity into credit, infrastructure, real estate and venture secondaries.
• Consolidation is accelerating as asset managers acquire specialist secondaries capabilities rather than building every capability organically.
• For younger secondaries markets such as India, the global experience suggests an important evolution: as capital becomes more available, information and execution may become the scarcer advantages.

How Large Is the Global Private Market Secondaries Industry?

The amount of capital being raised for private market secondaries continues to increase.

The world’s 50 largest secondaries firms collectively raised $584.6 billion between January 2021 and December 2025, according to Private Equity International’s 2026 Secondaries Investor 50 ranking.

That was nearly 12% higher than the $522.5 billion recorded in the previous ranking, marking a second consecutive year of double-digit fundraising growth.

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Goldman Sachs Asset Management topped the 2026 ranking with $45.1 billion raised over the five-year measurement period, followed by other large global secondaries platforms. But the more interesting development is not simply how much money the industry has raised. It is what scale increasingly allows managers to do with it.

Why Does Scale Matter in Private Market Secondaries?

Secondaries are unusually information-intensive investments.

Unlike buying a listed security with standardised disclosures and continuous price discovery, secondary investors may need to evaluate private companies, fund portfolios, manager histories, valuations, legal structures and liquidity pathways across thousands of underlying assets.

As a manager participates in more transactions, it can potentially accumulate more information about funds, assets, managers, pricing and previous transactions. That information can compound.

Private Equity International’s reporting points to this directly. Industry participants cited proprietary data, specialised resources, artificial intelligence and execution capabilities among the areas where larger platforms can invest more heavily.

This suggests a useful distinction:

Capital determines how much a secondaries investor can buy. Information and execution increasingly determine what it should buy, at what price, and how quickly it can act.

That may be why scale is becoming more consequential as the market matures.

How Can Data Become an Advantage in Secondaries?

Private markets have less standardised information than public markets. That makes historical experience particularly valuable.

A manager that has repeatedly evaluated the same GPs, portfolios, sectors and companies may possess information that is difficult to recreate from a single data room.

Past transactions can provide reference points for valuations. Existing GP relationships can improve access to information. Portfolio history can help investors understand how marks have evolved. Experience across cycles can help distinguish temporary pricing dislocations from more fundamental problems.

In that sense, secondaries can exhibit a form of information compounding. The more of the market a manager has evaluated, the larger the potential information base available when evaluating the next transaction. Scale therefore need not simply mean a larger fund. In secondaries, scale can mean a larger memory of the market.

Why Is the Secondaries Industry Consolidating?

Another indication of the value of scale is the amount of consolidation taking place across the industry.

Private Equity International highlights several recent transactions, including Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s acquisition of venture-secondaries specialist Industry Ventures, EQT’s agreement to acquire Coller Capital and Bridgepoint’s acquisition of Newbury Partners.

The strategic logic is revealing. Acquiring an established secondaries specialist can provide more than additional assets under management. It can bring investment teams, GP relationships, transaction history, proprietary information and expertise that could take years to develop organically.

Consolidation can therefore be understood partly as a race to acquire capability, not simply capital. The same logic is appearing as secondaries expand beyond their traditional private-equity base.

Are Secondaries Expanding Beyond Private Equity?

Yes.

The global market is increasingly developing dedicated strategies across private credit, infrastructure, real estate and venture capital, alongside traditional private-equity secondaries.

PEI notes that several major managers have either launched or are preparing strategies outside conventional PE secondaries, including dedicated credit and real-estate offerings.

This matters because sellers do not necessarily organise their portfolios neatly by asset class.

An institutional LP seeking liquidity may own private equity, credit, infrastructure and real estate simultaneously. A buyer capable of underwriting several categories can potentially offer a more comprehensive solution.

That creates another dimension to scale: The larger opportunity may not be owning more of one secondary market, but being able to operate across several secondary markets at once.

Are Secondaries Transactions Getting Larger?

There are signs that they are. According to Jefferies data cited by PEI, the average LP-led secondary transaction increased from approximately $425 million in 2024 to $450 million in 2025.

GP-led commitments are also becoming larger. PEI cites Lazard data showing increasing proportions of lead and syndicate investors making sizeable average commitments.

Larger transactions can naturally favour investors with substantial pools of deployable capital. But capital is only one requirement.

A billion-dollar portfolio still needs to be priced, diligenced and executed. As transaction complexity increases, the operational infrastructure around the capital can become just as important as the capital itself.

What Could This Mean for Private Market Secondaries in India?

India’s secondaries market is much earlier in its development than the global market. That makes the direction of the mature market particularly useful to observe.

In an emerging market, simply having dedicated secondary capital can be a differentiator. As more capital enters, however, that advantage is likely to narrow. The next layer of differentiation could increasingly come from proprietary transaction data, manager relationships, specialised underwriting expertise and execution experience.

India does not need to reproduce the structure of the global secondaries market exactly. Its market has different assets, investors, regulations and liquidity pathways. But the global experience suggests one broader principle:

As a secondaries market matures, competitive advantage can shift from having capital to having context.

For investors, that context can determine which assets are worth owning, what price makes sense and which transactions are actually executable.

The Oister View

The growth of global secondaries tells us something beyond the headline fundraising numbers.

Capital is becoming abundant enough that capital itself may be a less durable differentiator.

What becomes harder to replicate is the infrastructure built around it: years of transaction data, relationships, specialised underwriting capability and execution experience.

For India’s still-developing secondaries market, that distinction will become increasingly important.

The first stage of the market is about establishing liquidity and bringing dedicated capital into the category.

The next is about building the information and execution infrastructure that allows that capital to be deployed well.

That is when secondaries begin to evolve from a collection of transactions into an investment market.

Chief Brand & Investor Relations Officer

Sneha Dadrwal

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is scale in private market secondaries?

A: Scale can refer to capital under management, but increasingly also encompasses transaction history, proprietary data, manager relationships, specialised teams and execution capabilities.

Q: How much capital have the world’s largest secondaries firms raised?

A: The top 50 firms in Private Equity International’s 2026 ranking raised $584.6 billion during the five years to December 2025.

Q: Why is data important in secondaries?

A: Private assets have less standardised disclosure and price discovery than public securities. Historical transaction data, portfolio information and manager relationships can therefore improve underwriting and pricing context.

Q: Are secondaries only a private-equity strategy?

A: No. Dedicated secondaries strategies are increasingly developing across private credit, real estate, infrastructure and venture capital.

Sources

Private Equity International, The Secondaries Investor 50: 2026, September 2026. PEI’s ranking measures capital raised for qualifying private-market secondaries strategies over the five years from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025.