Private Equity 24 Hours

Last updated: May 18, 2026, 8:30 AM ET

PE Deals & Exits

European healthcare assets continued to attract cross-border attention as EQT and IDG advanced into the next round of bidding for Poly Peptide, signaling strong demand for Swiss pharmaceutical specialists in a deepening European healthcare deal pipeline. The momentum in Nordic healthcare exit activity also picked up, with Triton exiting Aleris, a provider operating more than 100 clinics across Sweden, Norway and Denmark, through a strategic sale that follows McWin's recent listing of its quick-service restaurant portfolio. Meanwhile, L Catterton sold Everlane to Shein at a valuation of roughly $100 million, marking a sharp reset for the once-celebrated direct-to-consumer apparel brand and raising questions about the durability of DTC premiums in an era of intensifying e-commerce competition.

Tech, AI & Physical-World Bets

The private markets appetite for agentic AI infrastructure broadened as Sverica sold its agentic AI firm WinWire to NTT Data, a partial exit that caps what was originally a 2021 investment amid a flood of capital chasing AI applications. That appetite for frontier tech is increasingly directed at tangible, physical-world assets, with Eclipse's $2.5 billion Cerebras investment illustrating how the real-world compute thesis is gaining institutional traction after years of software-first orthodoxy. At the same time, quantum computing startup funding is on track to decline from last year's peaks, even as deal counts remain healthy and large rounds continue, suggesting investors are becoming more selective on valuations in an otherwise frothy quantum ecosystem. Deep learning's commercial moat also attracted a new wave of capital, with investors pouring billions into the DeepMind "mafia" as Google parent Alphabet's AI subsidiary becomes a magnet for follow-on capital across Europe and North America.

Strategy & Thematic Plays

Sverica to sell agentic AI firm WinWire to NTT Data closed another exit in the AI portfolio, while Blue Owl's liquidity playbook revealed how the mega-fund structures its GP-stake monetisation and fund-level distributions to LPs, offering a playbook that other asset managers are closely studying as fee pressures mount. Pophouse acquired Tina Turner's catalog and NIL rights for IP-driven revenue generation through streaming, live experiences and brand extensions, a play that reflects a broader PE pivot toward entertainment and media rights as traditional retail assets compress. On the geopolitical front, Europe's chip startups are waging lobby battles against semiconductor giants, a fight that could reshape EU industrial policy and determine whether European fab investments retain private capital or migrate toward state-backed vehicles.