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KKR ranked No. 1 in the 2025 PEI 300, with $117.889 billion in private-equity fundraising over the five-year period from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2024. EQT came second with $113.257 billion, followed by Blackstone with $95.721 billion. These are fundraising totals—not current assets under management or measures of investment performance.
How the 2025 ranking defines “biggest”
The PEI 300 ranks firms by capital raised for private equity over a defined five-year window. For the 2025 edition, Thoma Bravo’s dated notice gives the period as “January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2024.” The table below reproduces the reported amounts in the June 2025 PEI 300 report, hosted as a copy by EM2 Outsourcing; the ranking and figures are attributed to Private Equity International (PEI), not to the host. Thoma Bravo’s 2025 ranking notice and the PEI 300 report copy provide the period and table, respectively.
A high fundraising rank does not establish that a firm has the most assets under management (AUM), achieved the best returns, owns the strongest portfolio companies, or exerts the most influence. It answers a narrower question: which firms recorded the most fundraising under this ranking’s criteria and period?
The 25 largest firms by five-year fundraising
Amounts are US dollars in millions, as reported in the June 2025 PEI 300 report. The period is 2020–2024.
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#1 Best Overall
| Rank | Firm | Fundraising (US$ millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | KKR | $117,889 |
| 2 | EQT | $113,257 |
| 3 | Blackstone | $95,721 |
| 4 | Thoma Bravo | $88,181 |
| 5 | TPG | $72,584 |
| 6 | CVC Capital Partners | $72,465 |
| 7 | Hg | $72,462 |
| 8 | Hellman & Friedman | $50,215 |
| 9 | Clayton, Dubilier & Rice | $49,784 |
| 10 | Insight Partners | $48,163 |
| 11 | Silver Lake | $47,100 |
| 12 | Clearlake Capital Group | $45,178 |
| 13 | General Atlantic | $44,716 |
| 14 | Goldman Sachs Asset Management | $42,601 |
| 15 | Bain Capital | $40,547 |
| 16 | Advent International | $38,223 |
| 17 | The Carlyle Group | $36,400 |
| 18 | Warburg Pincus | $34,234 |
| 19 | Andreessen Horowitz | $34,224 |
| 20 | Vista Equity Partners | $31,881 |
| 21 | Apollo Global Management | $31,349 |
| 22 | Neuberger Berman Private Markets | $31,303 |
| 23 | TA Associates | $30,500 |
| 24 | GTCR | $30,180 |
| 25 | Veritas Capital | $29,677 |
What the top of the list shows
KKR and EQT crossed $100 billion
KKR’s $117.889 billion led the ranking, with EQT’s $113.257 billion close behind. Blackstone placed third at $95.721 billion. Those amounts are the firms’ recorded five-year fundraising totals in the 2025 table, not snapshots of their current AUM.
The next four positions are tightly grouped
Thoma Bravo ranked fourth at $88.181 billion. TPG, CVC Capital Partners, and Hg followed with $72.584 billion, $72.465 billion, and $72.462 billion, respectively. In this ranking, TPG’s lead over CVC was $119 million, and CVC’s lead over Hg was $3 million.
The list spans different investment approaches
The top 25 includes broad investment platforms as well as firms associated with narrower areas such as software, growth investing, and buyouts. PEI’s current firm coverage, for its later 2026 edition, describes KKR as a diversified investor emphasizing operational transformation; EQT as emphasizing sustainability, digitisation, and active ownership; Blackstone across business services, technology, consumer, life sciences, and secondaries; TPG across private equity, impact, and secondaries; and Thoma Bravo as a software specialist in cybersecurity, SaaS, and fintech. These are current descriptions of strategy, not proof of a specific 2025 holding or result. PEI’s ranking, methodology, and firm coverage
How PEI determines the ranking—and what it cannot tell you
PEI’s accessible methodology page describes the approach for the 2026 edition, which covers 2021–2025, rather than providing a complete, edition-specific explanation of every 2025 rule. It says the ranking counts dedicated capital raised for eligible private-market funds and describes qualifying closed-end blind-pool funds and equity strategies such as venture capital, growth equity, buyouts, turnaround, and distressed investing. It also describes exclusions, including fund leverage and targets. Those details explain PEI’s stated methodology approach, but should not be assumed to confirm verbatim every rule used for the 2025 table.
Thoma Bravo’s June 6, 2025 notice describes the ranking period and cautions that rankings reflect the criteria of the party conferring them rather than an endorsement. The firm also disclosed paying a reprint fee relating to the ranking. That context is relevant when reading a company’s own announcement of its position; it does not change the figures in PEI’s table.
- Fundraising is not AUM. The ranking measures capital raised during a window; it is not a balance-sheet-style total of assets managed at a particular date.
- Fundraising is not performance. Rank and amount do not establish returns, investment quality, or how much capital was ultimately deployed successfully.
- “Top” depends on the measure. A firm can rank highly by fundraising while having a different scale, strategy mix, or profile under another comparison.
How to use the list as a reader
If you are comparing private-equity firms, treat the PEI 300 as a measure of recent fundraising scale, then look separately at the factors relevant to your question. For an investor considering exposure through a fund or other product, the ranking alone does not tell you the product’s fees, liquidity, eligibility, risks, or returns. For a company evaluating a potential investor, fundraising rank alone does not establish fit, sector expertise, deal terms, or operational support.
Rank #4
Useful comparison axes include the fundraising window and amount, geography, sector specialization, breadth of strategies, and whether a firm is more oriented toward growth investing or buyouts. The PEI list supplies the first measure; other sources are needed to assess the rest.
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