Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. In the field of finance, private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms, rather than the companies in which they invest.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and often come from high technology industries such as information technology (IT) or biotechnology.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Equity is the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs, focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments globally. The group, which is based in New York City, was founded in 1986.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
Coller Capital is one of the largest global investors in the private equity secondary market ("secondaries"). It was founded in 1990 by the UK-based investor and philanthropist Jeremy Coller.
CCMP Capital Advisors, LP is an American private equity investment firm that focuses on leveraged buyout and growth capital transactions. Formerly known as JP Morgan Partners, the investment professionals of JP Morgan Partners separated from JPMorgan Chase on July 31, 2006. CCMP has invested approximately $12 billion in leveraged buyout and growth capital transactions since inception. In 2007, CCMP was ranked #17 among the world's largest private equity funds.
The history of private equity, venture capital, and the development of these asset classes has occurred through a series of boom-and-bust cycles since the middle of the 20th century. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel, although interrelated tracks.
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet, SaaS, business and financial services, and healthcare. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Norwest has offices in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai, India and Tel Aviv, Israel. The firm has funded more than 700 companies since inception.
Insight Venture Management, LLC is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and Internet businesses. The company is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Tel Aviv, and Palo Alto.
The early history of private equity relates to one of the major periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.
Private equity in the 1990s relates to one of the major periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital, experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.
Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.
Publicly traded private equity refers to an investment firm or investment vehicle, which makes investments conforming to one of the various private equity strategies, and is listed on a public stock exchange.
Probitas Partners is an independent, global advisory firm founded in 2001. The company is focused on raising capital as a placement agent for private equity fund sponsors as well as providing portfolio management and liquidity solutions, through the private equity secondary market, for investors in private equity. The firm operates through three primary businesses: fund placement, portfolio management and secondary advisory. In 2002, the firm established a European placement business.
Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) provides a secondary market trading venue for issuers, brokers, shareholders, and prospective investors of private company stock. Since inception, NPM has facilitated more than $40 billion in transactional volume and has worked with 400+ private companies and 100,000+ employees, stakeholders, and investors. NPM offers private company and investors different solutions including tender offers, auctions, block trades, and custom company marketplaces. In 2021, NPM spun-off of Nasdaq to become its own, independent company receiving strategic investments from Silicon Valley Bank, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Allen and Co.
Hootsuite is a social media management platform, created by Ryan Holmes in 2008. The system's user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and TikTok.
FirstMark is a Venture capital firm based in New York City. FirstMark invests in early-stage technology companies, frequently as the first institutional investor and leading the rounds it participates in. Notable investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Shopify, DraftKings, Stubhub, Upwork, and Ro.
SeedInvest is an equity crowdfunding platform that connects startups with investors online. The company was founded in 2012 and launched in 2013. SeedInvest has focused on building liquidity in the platform by attracting high-net-worth individuals, family offices and venture capital firms. SeedInvest screens and vets deals before allowing them to take advantage of the JOBS Act exemption permitting General Solicitation. In September 2014 the company launched a partnership with Angel Investing website Gust.
Greenhouse Software is an American technology company headquartered in New York City that provides a recruiting software as a service. It was founded in 2012 by Daniel Chait and Jon Stross, two Class of 1995 graduates from the University of Michigan.
eShares, Inc., doing business as Carta, Inc., is a San Francisco, California-based technology company that specializes in capitalization table management and valuation software. The company digitizes paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to allow companies, investors, and employees to manage their equity and track company ownership. The company also operates CartaX, a private stock exchange.
