That’s not my number. That’s from the CEO of EQT – one of the largest PE firms in the world.
Here’s the math: There are 15,000+ private capital firms operating today. Only about 5,000 have successfully raised a fund in the last seven years. Half of those may not raise again.
The result? Thousands of firms left managing aging portfolios with no new capital, no fresh deals, and no real future.
The industry has a name for it: zombie firms.
And the core problem isn’t the fundraising market. It’s what’s inside the portfolio.
Businesses that were never truly independent of their owners. No transferable systems. No bench. Nothing a buyer can underwrite or an LP can get excited about.
I was on the GP side of a frozen portfolio in 2008. I survived it. Now I fix them.
The firms that survive the next decade will be the ones holding assets that can actually exit. Everything else is just managing the decline.