US PE/VC Benchmark Commentary: First Half 2025 (Cambridge Associates)

Summary

• In the first half of 2025, the CA US Private Equity Index returned 3.9% while the CA US Venture Capital Index returned 6.4%.p.1
• Within US private equity, growth equity returned 4.9% compared to 3.6% for buyouts.p.1
• US PE fund managers distributed $78.9 billion and called $67.6 billion during the first two quarters of 2025.p.2
• Information technology remained the largest sector in the PE index, accounting for 35.8% of market value as of June 30, 2025.p.3
• Gross company-level sector returns in the VC benchmark ranged from 0.2% for healthcare to 29.7% for financials.p.6
• As of June 30, 2025, the Cambridge Associates database included 1,700 US PE funds valued at $1.6 trillion and 2,699 US VC funds valued at $591 billion.p.7

Key insights

1. Public companies accounted for about 7% of the VC index market value and about 4% of the PE index as of June 30, 2025.p.1
2. Six-month PE vintage returns ranged from 0.6% for vintage year 2016 to 6.9% for vintage year 2023.p.2
3. Since the start of 2022, US VC managers have called 1.6x more capital than they have distributed to investors.p.5