Quantitative Investment Services

Benchmarking

Built on 45 years of deal level data across 64,000 investments and 3,000 partnerships

Use our comprehensive private markets benchmarks for consistent analysis of your private markets portfolio and its risk-adjusted returns. 

Break down the drivers of returns, assess risk, compare beta and volatility, and see how your results differ from broader market trends.​

Use HarbourVest’s proprietary benchmarks.

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HarbourVest Private Equity Investment Benchmark

HarbourVest’s proprietary investment-level benchmarks, created by the firm’s Quantitative Investment Science group, track the performance of companies held by private equity funds. The benchmarks are based on HarbourVest’s proprietary dataset of over 65,000 investments representing more than $3.7 trillion of capital invested in aggregate as of September 30, 2025. The innovation of benchmarks constructed from the investment-level unlocks new capabilities and more granular insights for private market investors that were previously unattainable with traditional fund-level benchmarks.

Over the past five years, HarbourVest has leveraged these benchmarks to enable deeper manager due diligence and inform portfolio construction, with insights into:

  • Greater transparency at the industry and regional level: Revealing the true drivers of risk and return that fund-level benchmarks mask and enabling a more precise performance attribution analysis that can inform manager skill evaluation and investment selection.

  • Practical asset allocation guidance: Because these benchmarks are built from investment data, they allow us to answer actionable asset allocation questions — what are a portfolio’s active weights by sector and geography relative to the benchmark? How do active sector weights and timing decisions drive portfolio returns?

  • Enable more apples-to-apples comparisons with public markets: The benchmarks are calculated using time weighted-returns, making them more suitable for attribution and risk factor analysis, similar to the rigorous analysis typically performed on public market holdings.

Q3 2025 Performance

HarbourVest Global Buyout Sector Benchmarks: Gross Performance
(12/31/2006—9/30/2025)

Benchmark Performance Metrics
(12/31/2006—9/30/2025)

Note: Annualized time-weighted returns presented in USD, gross of fees and carried interest, as of 9/30/2025. Volatility presented on a reported basis. Downside deviation and Sortino ratio calculated with minimum acceptable return of 0%.

Global Buyout Sector Benchmarks: Annual Gross Time-Weighted Returns

Source: HarbourVest. Benchmarks not shown for Energy, Real Estate, and Utilities sectors, which represent <2% market value as of 9/30/25. Annualized time-weighted returns presented in USD, gross of fees and carried interest.

Relative Sector Weights (HV Global Buyout vs. MSCI ACWI, as of 9/30/2025)

Sources: HarbourVest Data, MSCI. Consumer category combines Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples sectors.

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 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.

HarbourVest Partners, LLC is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The information on this site is intended solely for the benefit of firms and companies seeking private equity investment capital by providing general information on our services and philosophy. The material on this site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase any investment solutions or a recommendation to buy or sell a security nor is it to be construed as legal, tax or investment advice. Unless otherwise indicated, any information available through this site is as of the date indicated therein and may not be updated or otherwise revised to reflect information that subsequently becomes available. HarbourVest is under no obligation to update the information contained on this site. Additionally, the material on this site does not constitute a representation that the solutions described therein are suitable or appropriate for any person and HarbourVest does not accept any liability with respect to the information. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use.