Private markets: how to get started

For most of the last century, the stock market was where investors turned to find growth. If investors believed a company could become one of the great success stories of its generation, chances were, you could buy shares in it.

Today, that is not always the case.

Companies such as Stripe, Databricks and Revolut – to name just a few – have reached vast scale. They are all still private. In some cases, even when businesses eventually list, much of the growth may already have occurred. SpaceX is one of the most fitting recent examples. It debuted on the stock market in June 2026 with a valuation of around $1.7 trillion, after spending more than two decades as a private company.

It is not just businesses. Some of the most important assets underpinning the modern economy – from hyperscale data centres and fibre networks to renewable energy projects and battery storage – increasingly sit within private markets too.

Public markets remain essential, but they may no longer provide access to the full range of investment opportunities available. As a result, private markets are starting to move from the margins of investors’ portfolios towards the mainstream.

If you've been investing in stocks and bonds for years and want to add some private markets exposure to your portfolio, where could you start? How could you navigate a market that stretches from diversified portfolios holding hundreds of underlying investments to highly specialised strategies focused on a single theme? What should you consider, and what are the risks?

Please note: private market investments are higher risk and less liquid than public market investments. They are only for eligible investors with the knowledge and experience to understand their structure and risks. Due to regulatory restrictions, only investors who qualify as high net worth or sophisticated can access full details of the funds. 

Traditionally, private market funds involved high minimum investments (£5-10 million or more), long lock-up periods and limited opportunities to access your money before the fund's life ended, typically after 10 or more years.

As a result, they were primarily the preserve of pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and other large institutional investors.

Evergreen funds have changed that.

Their structure is significantly simpler and more flexible, in some ways similar to mainstream investments such as unit trusts. The minimum investment is much lower – it currently starts below £10,000 on our Private Markets Platform.

You can subscribe or request redemptions periodically, usually monthly or quarterly. However, total redemptions may be capped, restrictions can apply, and withdrawals may take weeks or, in some cases, months to process. 

As a result, evergreen funds have become one of the most accessible ways for eligible individual investors to gain exposure to private markets.

Much like public market funds, there are several types of evergreen fund, as featured on our Private Markets Platform.

Some invest across a range of private market assets. Others focus on a single area, such as private equity, infrastructure or private credit. There are also more specialised funds targeting particular sectors, technologies or themes.

Here, we give a quick overview as a starting point.

Read more on these types of fund: multi-asset, private equity, infrastructure, private credit and specialist.

Why you might consider a multi-asset private markets fund

• Broad exposure to private markets through a single investment.
• Access to a wide range of underlying investments, managers and strategies.
• A lower minimum investment than building a comparable portfolio of individual funds.
• Less research and administration than selecting and monitoring several funds yourself.
• Reduced reliance on the performance of any single area of private markets.

What to bear in mind

• Diversification may limit exposure to the strongest-performing investments.
• You have less control over where their money is allocated.
• It can be harder to see and assess every underlying investment.
• Costs may be higher, particularly where the portfolio invests through other funds.

Why you might consider a private equity fund

• Direct exposure to the potential growth of privately owned businesses.
• The potential to benefit as companies expand, improve their operations, make acquisitions or enter new markets.
• Access to businesses that are not available through public markets.
• A wide choice of approaches, from backing fast-growing companies to investing in established or underperforming businesses.

What to bear in mind

• Returns can vary considerably between managers and strategies.
• Funds generally focus on capital growth rather than producing income.
• Results depend heavily on the manager choosing the right businesses, increasing their value and successfully negotiating an exit.
• Some private equity funds use borrowing to finance investments, which can amplify both gains and losses and increase risk.

Why you might consider an infrastructure fund

• Exposure to physical assets providing essential or widely used services.
• The potential for more predictable income than growth-focused private equity.
• Access to long-term trends such as digitalisation, renewable energy and the modernisation of ageing infrastructure.
• Returns driven by different factors from those affecting private companies.
• The potential for a steadier contribution to a broader private markets portfolio – not guaranteed.

What to bear in mind

• The potential for rapid growth may be lower than in successful private equity investments.
• Performance can be affected by regulation, political decisions and changes in government policy.
• Projects may face delays, rising costs or operational issues.
• Higher interest rates can affect financing costs and asset values.

Why you might consider a private credit fund

• The potential for regular income from interest payments –not guaranteed.
• More focused on income than private equity or many infrastructure strategies.
• Some loans have floating interest rates, which can allow income from the underlying loans to rise if interest rates increase.
• Loans may be secured against company assets or include other protections for lenders.
• A broad lending portfolio can spread exposure across numerous borrowers.

What to bear in mind

• Borrowers may struggle or fail to pay the interest or repay their loans.
• Returns are generally limited to the interest and fees charged, even if a borrower becomes exceptionally successful.
• Higher interest rates can increase income but may also make repayments harder for borrowers.
• The strength of the security and other protections varies between funds.
• Results depend heavily on the manager’s lending standards and ability to recover money when borrowers run into difficulty.

Why you might consider a specialist fund

• Targeted exposure to an area where you have particularly strong conviction.
• Access to managers with specialist knowledge, networks and experience.
• The opportunity to add a particular exposure that you feel is missing from a broader portfolio.
• A clearer link between the investment and the long-term trend you want to back.
• The potential for stronger returns if the chosen area performs well.

What to bear in mind

• Performance may depend heavily on one sector, technology, region or theme.
• Specialist funds may own fewer investments than broader funds.
• Similar businesses can be affected by the same market, regulatory or technological changes.
• Specialist knowledge does not remove the risk of investing.

Alongside multi-asset funds, secondaries can be a relatively easy way to make a first allocation to private markets. 

A secondaries fund buys private market investments from another investor, usually because that investor wants early liquidity. The assets may already have several years of operating history, valuations and performance data. For a newcomer, that can make secondaries feel less like starting with a blank sheet and more like stepping into a portfolio with a track record.

Depending on the fund, it might give you broad exposure across private equity, private credit, infrastructure and other assets. Or it might focus just on one. It might buy stakes in several mature funds, or it might concentrate on a small number of companies or a single asset.

For investors, one attraction is that the investments are usually more mature. Some assets may be closer to being sold, which can mean capital is returned sooner. Managers may also be able to buy from sellers at a discount, although discounts are not guaranteed and do not automatically make an investment attractive.

While all investments can lose money, private markets investments sit at the riskier end of the spectrum. Some of the main risks are below.

Capital risk – Investors could lose some or all of their capital. Income is variable and not guaranteed. You should not invest money you cannot afford to lose, or may need in the short to medium term.

Liquidity risk – Private markets investments are long term and not easily realisable, with no established or easy-to-access secondary market. Even when investing through an evergreen fund, redemption requests are typically restricted to specific dealing windows and may be delayed or capped during periods of high demand. Early redemption penalties or restrictions may also apply.

Market and strategy risk – Investments in Private Markets are sensitive to changes in the global economic outlook. An economic slowdown or a drop in investor confidence could have an impact on the value of the investment. Some funds use more complex strategies or borrowing (leverage), which can boost gains but also make losses bigger. Make sure you understand how these approaches could impact your investment.

Currency risk – Investments denominated in currencies other than the fund’s base currency expose it to the risk of exchange rate movements.

Valuation risk – Private assets are valued periodically using private data, rather than traded continuously using publicly available data. As a result, valuations may not fully reflect changing market conditions and may be more opaque than publicly traded investments.

Due to the risks of private markets investments, it would be prudent for an experienced investor to allocate no more than a relatively small percentage of their total portfolio to this asset class.

There is no single route into private markets. The choice of whether investing is right for you and where to invest depends on your priorities, preferences, and circumstances.

• For broad exposure with relatively little administration: you could consider a multi-asset fund.
• For long-term growth from private businesses: you could explore private equity.
• For exposure to essential assets and potentially steadier returns: you could look at infrastructure.
• For income from lending to businesses: you could consider private credit.
• For targeted exposure to a particular sector or theme: you could look at specialist funds.

Once you have decided what kind of exposure you want, you can consider whether to access it through newly acquired investments, secondaries or a fund combining both.

These routes are not mutually exclusive. You might begin with a broad multi-asset fund and later add a more focused private equity, infrastructure or private credit fund. Alternatively, if you already have a clear objective, you might choose to start with a single strategy.