Resources›Market Data
The numbers shaping private capital.
Secondary volumes, fraud risk, dry powder, and the scale of the asset class.
Secondary Market
The secondary market is no longer niche.
For decades, selling an LP position meant a distressed fire sale. That has changed. The secondary market has matured into a strategic portfolio management tool, and the infrastructure has not kept pace with the volume.
$162B
Global secondary transaction volume in 2024
Up from $114B in 2023. The market has grown 5x over the past decade as LPs increasingly use secondaries for portfolio rebalancing, not just distressed exits.
Jefferies Global Secondary Market Review, 2025
$252B
Available secondary market supply
Seller interest now significantly exceeds transaction volume. The gap is not demand: it is execution infrastructure. Deals that should close in days take months.
Jefferies Global Secondary Market Review, 2025
40%
First-time sellers in 2024
Nearly half of LP sellers had never transacted on the secondary market before. This is not a niche club anymore; it is becoming standard portfolio practice.
Industry estimates, 2024
Cost of Selling
Liquidity has a price.
For LPs in the mid-market, that price is steep: not just in NAV discounts, but in time, legal fees, and operational burden.
10-30%
Typical discount to NAV
Sellers routinely accept 10-30% less than their position's stated value. The discount compensates buyers for illiquidity risk and transaction complexity, which are costs that better infrastructure could reduce.
Lazard Secondary Market Report, 2024
60-90d
Average time to close
A secondary transaction involves GP consent, legal review, transfer documentation, and buyer due diligence. Each step adds weeks. For comparison, public market trades settle in two days.
Industry estimates
$353K
Estimated friction costs per mid-market transaction
Legal fees, advisory fees, administrative overhead, and opportunity cost. For positions under $50M, these costs can represent 1-2% of transaction value on top of the NAV discount.
swelv analysis
Capital Call Fraud
A real and growing risk.
Capital calls move large sums via email and wire transfer, which is exactly the workflow that cybercriminals exploit. Private equity's operational processes were designed for a pre-digital era.
$809K
Average targeted payout in capital call fraud schemes
Capital calls are high-value targets. Unlike typical BEC scams averaging $129K, PE capital call fraud targets six- and seven-figure transfers. The attack vector is simple: intercept or spoof a capital call email and redirect wire instructions.
Agari Email Fraud Report, 2021
$2.77B
Total BEC losses reported to FBI in 2024
Business email compromise is the second-costliest cybercrime category. PE firms are particularly vulnerable because of large transaction sizes, email-based processes, and limited verification infrastructure.
FBI IC3 Annual Report, 2024
73%
Share of 2024 cyber incidents involving BEC
Up from 44% in 2023. Attackers are shifting toward email compromise because it works: no malware required, just convincing impersonation and poor verification processes.
Federal Reserve Financial Services, 2024
Scale of Private Capital
Private equity is no longer an alternative.
Private equity has become a core allocation. The infrastructure supporting it should reflect that scale.
$9.5T
Global private equity AUM
Private equity has grown from a niche strategy to nearly 10% of global investable assets. Yet the operational infrastructure (reporting, capital calls, and liquidity) remains fragmented and manual.
Preqin, 2024
$2.8T
Unfunded commitments (dry powder)
LPs have committed $2.8 trillion they have not yet contributed. Each dollar represents a future capital call, and a future wire transfer that needs to be executed, verified, and reconciled.
Preqin, 2024
Data sourced from publicly available industry reports. Last updated: February 2026.