Investment-level benchmarks bring sector-level transparency to the global private equity market
Boston, MA – March 11, 2026 – Global private markets investment firm HarbourVest Partners today released the latest performance data for the HarbourVest Private Equity Investment Benchmarks (“HV PE Investment Benchmarks”), publishing trailing 1-year, 5-year and 10-year returns through September 30, 2025, for its Global, US, and Global-ex US Buyout Benchmarks – along with the underlying sector returns that drive them.
Not all Private Equity Benchmarks are Alike — Investment-level Data is Critical When Comparing to Public Market Indexes
“It’s critical for investors to know that not all private equity benchmarks are alike. HarbourVest’s investment-level benchmarks are built on 65,000 underlying transactions, which allow investors to see how private markets performed and understand the key drivers behind this performance. This enables a more apples-to-apples comparison with public market benchmarks, facilitating sector, regional, and factor exposure analysis,” said Sofia Gertsberg, Managing Director and Head of Quantitative Investment Science, HarbourVest Partners. “By exposing sector composition and industry tilts, we believe our benchmarks can provide transparency and a level of granularity that traditional fund-level data cannot match.”
Sector Highlights
Within Global Buyouts, Technology companies generated the strongest performance over the past decade but have lagged Financials and Industrials in the most recent 5 years. The Consumer sector has faced persistent headwinds, trailing the aggregate benchmark in 12-month, 5-year, and 10-year returns.
Over the last five years, Information Technology returns outside the US have shown notable resilience, with 20.2% annualized return, outpacing the aggregate Global ex-US Buyout market.
“At a sector-level, our data shows that the global buyout market is overweight Health Care, Industrials, and Information Technology compared to public markets, offering complementary exposure.” said Gertsberg. “And within tech, the focus has been on software, whereas public markets have a stronger appetite for chip and hardware companies. Within Industrials, buyouts have also focused more on services-oriented companies than the public markets.”
About the HarbourVest Private Equity Benchmarks (“HV PE Benchmarks”)
HarbourVest’s proprietary benchmarks, created by the firm’s Quantitative Investment Science group, track the performance of PE and venture-owned companies. HarbourVest releases benchmark performance for companies in the following categories (i) Global Buyouts; (ii) US Buyouts, a subset of the Global Buyouts category; (iii) US Venture Capital; (iv) Global ex-US Buyouts, a subset of the Global Buyouts category; and (v) Europe Buyouts, a subset of the Global Buyouts category. An investment benchmark is similar to a scorecard, used to measure how well an investment is performing compared to a relevant counterpart. The HarbourVest benchmarks are based on HarbourVest’s proprietary dataset of over 65,000 investments that have been held in PE funds, representing more than $3.7 trillion of capital invested collectively as of September 30, 2025. We believe these benchmarks can provide recipients with differentiated information based on extensive private deal data and cash flow history, enabling transparency into performance drivers to provide more granular insights than is available with traditional PE benchmarks.
Disclosures:
HarbourVest Private Equity Benchmarks (“HV PE Benchmarks”). Market analysis is not representative of any HarbourVest product: The HV PE Benchmarks reflect a compilation of PE partnership and transactional data drawn from internal and external sources and related estimated valuations of such companies by HarbourVest for the illustrated period (which in turn are based on HarbourVest’s subjective assumptions). Returns are not representative of any HarbourVest fund, account, and are not representative of any HarbourVest investment experience. Returns are gross of management fees and carried interest. The HV PE Benchmarks data universe information has been developed internally based on information obtained from sources believed to be reliable; however, HarbourVest does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of such information or HarbourVest’s related valuation estimates or assumptions, which may be materially inaccurate. The HV PE Benchmarks are intended to be representative of the broader PE market and do not reflect any views, analysis, or recommendation by HarbourVest with respect to any particular investment and are not representative of the investment performance of any HarbourVest investment or the experience of any investor in any HarbourVest product. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
HarbourVest Partners, LLC (“HarbourVest”) is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. This material is solely for informational purposes and should not be viewed as a current or past recommendation or an offer to sell or the solicitation to buy securities or adopt any investment strategy. The opinions expressed herein represent the current, good faith views of the author(s) at the time of publication, are not definitive investment advice, and should not be relied upon as such. This material has been developed internally and/or obtained from sources believed to be reliable; however, HarbourVest does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of such information. The information is subject to change without notice and HarbourVest has no obligation to update you. There is no assurance that any events or projections will occur, and outcomes may be significantly different than the opinions shown here. This information, including any projections concerning financial market performance, is based on current market conditions, which will fluctuate and may be superseded by subsequent market events or for other reasons.
The HarbourVest Global Buyout Benchmark seeks to measure the performance, gross of fund fees, expenses and carried interest, of buyout investments made by private equity funds in private companies globally.
The HarbourVest U.S. Buyout Benchmark seeks to measure the performance, gross of fund fees, expenses and carried interest, of buyout investments made by private equity funds in private companies that are based in the United States.
The HarbourVest Global ex-US Buyout Benchmark seeks to measure the performance, gross of fund fees, expenses and carried interest, of buyout investments made by private equity funds in private companies globally, including developed and emerging markets, excluding companies based in the United States.
The MSCI AC World® Index (ACWI) is designed to measure the performance of publicly-traded large and mid-capitalization equity securities in global developed and emerging markets. The MSCI ACWI Index is maintained by Morgan Stanley Capital International (“MSCI”) and has historically captured approximately 85% coverage of the free float-adjusted market capitalization of its publicly-traded global equity opportunity set.
About HarbourVest Partners
HarbourVest is an independent, global private markets firm with over 43 years of experience and $150 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2025. Our interwoven platform provides clients access to global primary funds, secondary transactions, direct co-investments, real assets and infrastructure, and private credit. Our strengths extend across strategies, enabled by our team of more than 1,200 employees, including more than 225 investment professionals across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. We partner strategically and plan our offerings innovatively to provide our clients with access, insight, and global opportunities.
