Insights

Image source: Unsplash Founder-led businesses in the lower middle market often find themselves in a tight spot. They need capital to grow, support working capital, acquisitions, capital equipment, and even shareholder dynamics (buyouts and liquidity events). However, business owners are often hesitant to give up ownership, or control, and funding options can be limited. Survey data supports the strength of that ownership instinct . In a recent global study of family and foun

Image source: Unsplash As private markets mature, the lines between debt, liquidity, and secondary capital are becoming increasingly blurred. NAV financing sits at this intersection. It helps funds turn illiquid assets into usable cash without requiring immediate asset sales. In a tighter capital environment, fund liquidity is now a strategic concern. Slower distributions and tougher fundraising are forcing managers to use capital more efficiently. NAV financing has evolved i

Image by Unsplash Private credit, once a specialized channel, now anchors global corporate finance, with over US $3 trillion in AUM. As banks recalibrate under regulatory pressure, private lenders have stepped in to fill the void, redefining how debt capital is sourced and deployed. The shift is structural and increasingly systemic. Scaling to Norm U.S. private credit surpassed US $1.3 trillion by mid-2024; globally, the market now exceeds US $3 trillion. Banks’ retrenchment

Issue - October 2025 This piece was originally published in our Axis Capital Markets newsletter . To get future issues straight to your inbox, sign up here: axiscapitalmarkets.beehiiv.com 🔷Liquidity by Design: How Secondaries Are impacting Private Credit  Private credit secondaries have shifted from being a niche solution to a core component of the market’s architecture. What was once viewed as opportunistic has become integral to the way private credit capital is recycled,

Source: figure.ai A New Phase of AI Investment The evolution of Figure.ai  illustrates a notable shift in how capital is being deployed across artificial intelligence and automation. The company has raised over $1.8 billion at a $39 billion valuation, positioning itself as one of the early leaders in humanoid robotics. Founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, Figure.ai draws on engineering talent from Tesla, Boston Dynamics, DeepMind, and NASA—combining embodied AI with scalable man

Image by Unsplash At   Axis Group Ventures , we specialize in strategic debt placements across venture growth, the lower middle market,...

Some interesting news from PitchBook's 2023 Annual Global Private Markets Fundraising Report.  In 2023, Approximately $1,174.6 billion was raised across all global private capital strategies. The aggregate YoY change was down (20.5%). All strategies were down YoY with the exception of secondaries, though secondaries only accounted for $78.3 billion. Of note, Secondaries had a substantial increase (but from a smaller base). Venture capital, real estate, real assets, and fund o

There’s been an uptick in secondary market activity after a slowdown observed in 2022 and early 2023, Crunchbase  reports. In the last...

Source: Shutterstock Safety-First AGI as a Capital Strategy Anthropic represents a different frontier in artificial intelligence: not embodied, but aligned . Founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, the company has raised $3.3 billion  to date and is positioning itself as a global leader in safe, steerable, and scalable language models . Claude, its flagship assistant, is designed with Constitutional AI —a unique framework that allows the model to gov

February 07, 2022 09:30 AM Eastern Standard Time MIAMI & LOS ANGELES--( BUSINESS WIRE )-- Rainmaker Securities , a leader in the...