HarbourVest Pulls in $18.5B for Secondaries Funds

HarbourVest Partners has closed on $18.5 billion of new capital, raising one of the largest private equity secondary funds in the world. The firm reached its $15.1 billion hard cap for Dover Street XI and gathered an additional $3.4 billion for the related co-investment vehicle, Secondary Overflow V.

Since inception, the private markets asset manager has deployed over $55 billion into almost 650 secondaries transactions, focusing on a balanced mix of LP-led and GP-led opportunities.

Dover Street XI and the Secondary Overflow Fund V has received commitments from corporations, pension funds, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds and private wealth investors, including $175 million from Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds.

“More than 35 years after our first secondary transaction, the continued success of our secondaries program is a reflection of our team’s dedication to building an investment pipeline that benefits investors across multiple strategies and separately managed accounts,” said John Toomey, managing director at HarbourVest Partners.

HarbourVest’s fundraising efforts have elevated the company to the ranks of the most prominent players in the private equity secondary market. In January, Lexington Partners secured the largest secondaries private equity fund in history by raising $22.7 billion. This achievement propelled the firm back to the forefront of the fundraising race against its competitors, Blackstone and Ardian.

In 2023, Blackstone established a precedent for future private equity secondaries fundraising by hauling in a record $22 billion for its most recent fund in the strategy. Ardian is presently evaluating a potential $25 billion secondaries fund.