Last updated: August 7, 2026, 1:18 PM ET
Mega-deals & Take-privates
Apollo secured a recommended cash offer for easy Jet valuing the FTSE 100 airline at approximately £5.7bn, ending a fast-moving four-week bidding contest. The deal highlights the rise of "bear hugs" in UK take-privates as unsolicited approaches gain traction. Bodycote plc confirmed receipt of two competing conditional cash offers from CVC and Veritas Capital Fund IX. The heat treatment and metallurgical services provider is now the subject of a £1.56bn bidding war. KKR has agreed to acquire Medicover India, the Indian hospital operations of Nasdaq Stockholm-listed Medicover AB, adding a scaled multi-specialty network to its healthcare portfolio. Partners Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, which has delivered more than 20,000 projects and installed approximately 3.5GW of power for data centers across Europe's FLAP-D markets.
Sunoco will acquire Court Square-backed oil transporter Offen Petroleum for $600m, a target that delivers 2.5 billion gallons annually to roughly 7,000 customers. Bain Capital has agreed to acquire Gong cha from TA, the tea beverage chain serving milk tea, fruit tea and other cold drinks. Clearlake co-founder Feliciano is nearing a record US$3.9bn MLB deal for the San Diego Padres, the most expensive franchise sale in Major League Baseball history. PE-backed Context Logic will acquire chemicals manufacturer gChem from EagleTree for $850m, making it the company's second operating business following its early 2026 acquisition of US Salt.
Fundraising
G Squared has secured $2.3bn for its seventh flagship fund, which is about twice the size of its previous vehicle and took half as long to raise. Nextalia held a first close of more than €1.1bn on Nextalia Private Equity II, pulling in commitments from 200 investors in the five months since opening fundraising in February, pushing the Italian platform past €3.4bn. TPG has nabbed the lion's share of a $17bn target for TPG X and its third healthcare fund, which are part of TPG's $94bn Capital platform for large-scale global private equity investing. The EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund has made its first investment, co-leading a €450m round into ICEYE, backing the Finnish satellite operator at a €10bn valuation.
Moove has raised $250M to scale up the autonomous vehicle fleet management side of its business, with plans to someday own Waymo robotaxis. Wind Borne Systems has raised a US$37 million Series B to scale its weather balloons and AI forecasts. Fintech startup Moss has been crowned Europe's newest unicorn with a €30m Series C. After a decade of turning down VCs, Oxylabs has hit a US$3.6bn valuation with the "right timing, right partner". Legaltech Wordsmith has raised a US$14m Series B extension from Index and FT Ventures.
Secondaries
BlackRock TCP Capital has agreed to sell a US$523m slab of its private credit portfolio to funds managed by Pantheon, a landmark BDC continuation vehicle. The new vehicle will house over $500m of debt positions held by TCPC, with pricing at 95% of gross fair value as of 31 December 2025. Singapore's GIC is preparing to offload around US$1bn of fund stakes on the secondary market. Carlyle increasingly views Alp Invest as more of a corporate finance business than a standalone secondaries unit, with chief executive Harvey Schwartz noting tailwinds will persist for the "next several years".
Market volatility only tells part of the story of the GP-led market's H1 domination, with fundraising and expansion into new asset classes also driving growth. The single-asset secondaries market within infrastructure is blooming, though discipline, alignment and valuations remain critical to ensuring buyers bag a good deal. Danish pension scheme Industriens Pension favours indirect over direct investment in secondaries and has made commitments to five infra vehicles managed by Pantheon. Hamilton Lane co-chief Erik Hirsch said some investors have been "housing capital" in evergreens before redeeming to fund an SMA, suggesting evergreen hesitancy is temporary. VC investor Ryan Moore has closed on US$78.5m for Revenant Ventures, a debut fund per a regulatory filing. Assessing a quick-flip continuation vehicle on the asset's hold period alone is an imperfect metric, as the shorter the hold the higher the burden.
Credit & Corporate
Ares Management is leading a US$2.2bn direct loan to finance Med Impact Holdings' planned acquisition of Puerto Rico-based Medical Card System, according to Bloomberg. Bernard Arnault has installed Aymeric Le Clere as chairman and CEO of Financière Agache, the €3.1bn capital holding vehicle that anchors the Arnault family's control of LVMH. Allianz posted record operating profit for Q2 and H1, with €39bn of net inflows into its asset management arm as PIMCO and AGI push third-party AuM to a record €2.16tn.
Healthcare & Workforce
Clinical workforce services are attracting private equity firms such as Accel-KKR, Bain and Knox Lane, with tech advances driving deals in the sector. Accel-KKR, Bain, Knox Lane and LLR Partners are among the PE firms transacting in healthcare workforce across eight recent deals. Abry Partners has agreed to sell its stake in Prime Capital Financial to Carlyle, exiting the wealth platform after three years of concentrated growth at the $50bn AUM firm.
Mid-market M&A
Copley Equity-backed FMG Leading has snapped up Broadbranch Advisors, with the deal closing at end-July. MPK Equity-backed Gorgeous Collective has acquired Clean Your Dirty Face, its first acquisition since launch earlier in 2026. Tortuga Growth Partners has invested in Advanced eClinical Training out of its Fund I vehicle. Nexa Equity-backed Facility Grid has acquired autonomous commissioning company Ping Cx, introducing a new product strategy centered on three integrated offerings — FG Construct, Validate, and Sustain.
Arlington-backed TRP Infrastructure has closed five add-on deals to form a new highway plastics division, with the targets being folded into a new Gulf Highway Materials platform. LS Power will acquire the Brazos Valley gas-fired power plant from Constellation, a transaction that satisfies a regulatory divestiture tied to Constellation's 2025 acquisition of Calpine. Verdane has made a majority investment in Factbird, a Danish IoT and recurring software company providing manufacturing intelligence services. Veritas will acquire Greenbelt-backed Saber Power Services, a vertically integrated power platform that helps customers build, modernize and maintain critical electrical systems.
Red Bird's Affinia has added Wilson Partners in a UK accounting tie-up, with the firm advising SMEs and investors across the UK. KKR-backed FGS has scooped up government affairs firm Rich Feuer Anderson, marking its second bipartisan firm acquisition following the September 2025 acquisition of Tarplin, Downs & Young. Veritas will also acquire environmental consultant Trinity Consultants from Oak Hill, which acquired Trinity in 2021 from LLCP for undisclosed terms. Ridgemont has acquired remediation services firm Entact from JFLCO, a national remediation services provider to public- and private-sector customers.
Wynnchurch-backed Trimlite has bought doormaker Barnett Millworks, expanding its Southeast geographic footprint. Axum Capital has agreed to acquire beverage brand Barcode, a plant-based and hydration drink brand headquartered in Los Angeles. Thoma Bravo is selling Command Alkon to Francisco Partners, with the software and platform technology provider serving the heavy building materials industry. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is lining up data center contractor Divcon Controls for sale and Broad Sky has closed the sale of Smith + Howard to TPG, according to sources familiar with both. Divcon provides building and electrical monitoring systems to data centers and other mission-critical facilities. Broad Sky grew Smith + Howard 4x before exiting to TPG, with CEO Tyler Zachem noting "the business is durable" as tax and audit advisory are needed in good and bad times.
LP Activity
Italian pension fund ENPAV has released an RFP for private equity co-investment. MMAA looks to commit 300bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool PE funds for 2026. Korea Post Insurance seeks to commit 60bn Korean won to domestic blind-pool VC funds for 2026. Boston Retirement Systems has issued an RFP for up to a US$85m private equity mandate. Shoaib Khan, CIO of the New Jersey Division of Investment, says re-ups and new opportunities are being looked at on equal footing, with the pension fund seeing slow PE exit opportunity despite being spared liquidity concerns.
Earnings & Commentary
Mega-firms are largely defying fundraising and exit headwinds, according to learnings from earnings season, with OMERS plotting a fivefold increase of its PE portfolio. Apollo, a year after acquiring a GP, downplays manager consolidation while backing a novel first-time fund. Carlyle's US buyout strategy distributed capital at more than double the industry rate, with record realisations driving earnings.
Venture & Tech
Active startup investors kept up the pace in July, with familiar names topping the ranks in most prolific venture dealmakers. Y Combinator's growing class of second-timers shows the return of the repeat founder, with a 454 repeat founders dataset shared directly from YC. Robinhood will list a fund that lets any retail investor back Y Combinator startups, with the latest financial instrument intending to democratize access. A16z has 30+ venture scouts hunting for deals across Europe, expanding its scout network on the continent. Partners have identified the top junior VCs to watch in Europe, according to recommendations compiled by Sifted. Lightspeed partners Josh Machiz and Claire Zau found their newest hire via Instagram DM, discussing the social media presence strategies behind their podcast Lightwork. Yann LeCun has joined a new VC firm, backing 224 Ventures alongside 244 LPs.
Lendable is chasing the superapp dream, with the company saying it is constrained by capacity rather than ideas. Pleo faces a culture crisis with an executive exodus amid unrest and sale speculation. QMUL spinouts are looking to raise, with the spinout companies eyeing funding. Europe's 50 most active equity investors in H1 2026 have been ranked, with Sifted compiling the list. The 144 new funds this year reveal Europe's investment market pulse, with Sifted analyzing new funds. Over 127,000 workers at US-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2025, per a Crunchbase News layoffs tally.
Magic School AI, founded by an educator fascinated by the educational potential of Chat GPT, has raised US$63M from VCs, leading a series on founders from non-technical backgrounds. While integrating AI into a startup's product strategy is often viewed as a way to enhance valuation, it can inadvertently reduce exit value, argues tech strategic adviser Itay Sagie. Reed Smith's Josh Love calls music an "exceptionally active" market, with PE firms seeing record deals and AI improving administration and royalty processing. Blackstone, TPG and EQT have also been active in partnering with AI businesses across the music and broader technology sectors. AI is also impacting physical environments, with technology transforming science sectors and requiring "the bravery to change the process".
Other News
The UK has expanded its talent visa to more than 100 companies, broadening startup talent access. There are 7 spots to meet founders and VCs in Paris, with Sifted identifying key venues. The language of founder praise has evolved, with startup slang like "sweaty" decoding the new vocabulary. Advent has agreed to acquire FNZ Bank, an independent wealth banking provider in Germany. Njord Partners' Arvid Trolle says AI is now a "natural part" of how the firm operates and a key operational improvement tool, with the special situations investor seeing "resilience" in the value segment.