European Private Markets in 2026

In our annual review of the European private capital market, we examine fundraising and deal-making trends as they relate to investors and funds

• Aggregate deal value for European infrastructure reached €56bn in the first half of 2026, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the €81bn recorded across all of 2025

• After median buyout valuations converged at around 11x EBITDA in 2023, the gap between European and North American valuations reopened in 2024 and expanded to just over 2x EBITDA by Q2 2026, reinforcing Europe’s relative entry-pricing appeal

• European institutions remain under-allocated to private markets, with allocations representing 11.4% of portfolios on a weighted average basis at the end of 2025 – 9.6 percentage points below the global average

• Nordic VC deal value rose 65% year on year in 2025 to $7.2bn, while deal count was broadly unchanged at 465, indicating that larger rounds rather than higher deal volume drove the increase