Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
The secondaries market is no longer a niche corner of private equity. What was once a specialist strategy for offloading stakes in underperforming funds has become a core part of how allocators and fund managers manage their private markets exposure, providing liquidity, portfolio rebalancing, and an increasingly common tool for GPs looking to extend their hold on high-conviction assets through continuation vehicles. Fundraising for dedicated secondaries strategies has kept pace with this shift, and the largest managers in the space continue to raise record-setting flagship funds to meet growing demand from both buyers and sellers.
Consolidation has followed the growth. Diversified alternative asset managers are increasingly acquiring standalone secondaries specialists rather than building the capability in-house, a trend reinforced by EQT's planned acquisition of Coller Capital, one of the market's original pure-play secondaries firms. For fund managers, this signals that the largest and most active secondaries buyers are increasingly part of broader platforms with permanent capital and wealth channel distribution behind them, not standalone shops operating independently.
In this article, we highlight the leading secondaries managers shaping the private markets today, from the world's largest secondaries and primaries platform to specialist buyers driving growth in GP-led and credit secondaries. This overview provides insight into each firm's investment approach, areas of focus, and broader role in the private markets landscape.
1. Ardian
Overview: Ardian is a Paris-headquartered investment manager and operator of the world's largest secondaries and primaries platform. The firm's ninth secondaries fund closed in 2025 at $30 billion, the largest secondaries fund ever raised, bringing the platform's total assets under management or advised to more than $102 billion. Ardian's total firm AUM reached $200 billion as of March 2026, positioning it among Europe's largest alternative investment managers.
Focus: Ardian invests across global private equity LP-led and GP-led secondaries, with a growing infrastructure secondaries book. The firm concentrates on large, diversified fund portfolios and complex multi-asset GP-led restructurings, drawing on nearly three decades of secondaries experience.
2. AlpInvest Partners (Carlyle)
Overview: AlpInvest is Carlyle's secondaries, co-investment, and portfolio finance arm, headquartered across New York and Amsterdam, with approximately $96.5 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025. Its eighth secondaries fund closed in September 2025 at its $15 billion hard cap, part of a $20 billion global secondaries raise that included co-investment and private wealth vehicles.
Focus: AlpInvest targets LP-led portfolio purchases and GP-led secondaries across buyout, growth, and venture-backed funds. Its dedicated portfolio finance strategy has grown past $24 billion when combined with the core secondaries business, giving the firm added flexibility across the capital structure.
3. Blackstone Strategic Partners
Overview: Strategic Partners is Blackstone's secondaries platform, based in New York, managing $91 billion of investor capital across secondaries, GP stakes, and co-investments as of September 2025. Its flagship Strategic Partners IX fund was nearly fully committed at $19.7 billion of $22.2 billion by year-end 2025, and the group closed the largest infrastructure secondaries fund to date, SP Infrastructure IV, at $5.5 billion in September 2025.
Focus: Strategic Partners invests across private equity, real estate, and infrastructure secondaries, running dedicated infrastructure and real estate vehicles alongside its flagship PE program to cover the full range of private markets secondaries.
4. HarbourVest Partners
Overview: HarbourVest is an independent, global private markets firm headquartered in Boston, reporting $161 billion in firmwide assets under management as of December 31, 2025. The firm is recognized as the world's third-largest equities secondaries manager and expanded its credit secondaries platform through 2025, closing a $1.1 billion structured solutions vehicle for private market secondaries in January 2026.
Focus: HarbourVest concentrates on private equity secondaries and an increasingly active private credit secondaries business, complemented by evergreen secondaries products built for the private wealth channel.
5. Lexington Partners (Franklin Templeton)
Overview: Lexington Partners, headquartered in New York, is one of the world's largest managers of secondary private equity and co-investment funds. Franklin Templeton acquired the firm in April 2022, integrating roughly $57 billion of secondaries and co-investment assets into its alternatives platform. Since then, Lexington has extended into the wealth channel, with its Franklin Lexington Private Equities Secondaries strategy topping $3.5 billion in AUM within its first year.
Focus: Lexington specializes in large-cap private equity LP-led secondaries and co-investment, now paired with semi-liquid vehicles distributed to U.S. and international wealth investors alongside its institutional programs.
6. Coller Capital
Overview: Coller Capital, headquartered in London, is one of the secondaries market's original pure-play specialists, holding $50 billion in AUM and $33 billion in fee-generating assets at the end of 2025. EQT agreed to acquire the firm for up to $3.7 billion in a deal expected to close in Q3 2026, with founder Jeremy Coller and the existing team continuing to lead the investment process.
Focus: Coller invests across private equity, private credit, and climate-focused secondaries, historically known for underwriting large, complex LP portfolio transactions that few competitors can match in scale.
7. Pantheon
Overview: Pantheon, with offices in London and San Francisco, managed approximately $82 billion of discretionary capital as of June 30, 2025. Its private equity GP-led secondaries program, Pantheon Secondary Opportunities Fund II, closed at $1.1 billion in March 2025, nearly double the size of its predecessor, while its third opportunistic credit secondaries program closed at $2.2 billion in July 2025.
Focus: Pantheon focuses on GP-led private equity secondaries and a fast-growing private credit secondaries program, alongside a long-standing co-investment business across global private markets.
8. Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Vintage Funds)
Overview: Goldman Sachs Asset Management runs its secondaries business out of New York under the Vintage Funds brand, which held more than $45 billion in AUM as of mid-2023 following the $14.2 billion close of Vintage IX. In 2026, the firm completed its acquisition of venture secondaries specialist Industry Ventures, extending its reach into venture and growth-stage secondaries.
Focus: The Vintage platform covers multi-asset private equity secondaries, now complemented by Industry Ventures' specialization in venture capital secondaries and direct co-investments.
9. StepStone Group
Overview: StepStone, headquartered in New York, was responsible for approximately $723 billion of total capital, including $199 billion of assets under management, as of June 30, 2025. The firm closed its latest private equity secondaries fund at $4.8 billion in 2024 and is targeting roughly $6 billion for its next flagship vehicle, part of a combined $7 billion secondaries fundraising push across two funds.
Focus: StepStone runs secondaries strategies across private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and venture capital, supported by one of the industry's largest private wealth distribution platforms.
10. Adams Street Partners
Overview: Adams Street, headquartered in Chicago, reported $69.9 billion in firmwide AUM as of December 31, 2025, rising to $73 billion under a revised methodology adopted in July 2026. The firm's latest Secondaries Investment Program raised more than $5 billion, anchored by Global Secondary Fund 8 at $2.7 billion, roughly 50% larger than its predecessor fund.
Focus: Adams Street invests in diversified private equity LP-led secondaries, running a long-standing co-investment program alongside its flagship secondaries fund to source proprietary deal flow.
