European Private Markets Are Opening Up — Just Not in the Way Most People Expected

For years, the democratisation of private markets has been framed as an inevitable, uniform shift — a tide that would eventually lift all asset classes and carry institutional-grade returns to a much wider pool of investors. The reality emerging from the data is more nuanced, and more instructive.

Industry research expects private markets to become a dominant revenue driver for the asset management industry by 2030. The direction of travel is clear. But the mechanism through which expansion is actually happening tells a more specific story — one about which asset classes are genuinely scaling, which structures are proving workable, and what that means for managers building platforms today.

In Europe, the clearest regulatory access rail remains ELTIF 2.0. The revised regime, applicable since January 2024, was designed by the European Commission to remove barriers and enable ELTIFs to be marketed to investors across the EU. Product activity has responded accordingly. At least 82 ELTIFs were launched in the first three quarters of 2025, compared with 55 across the whole of 2024 — a significant acceleration that reflects both regulatory clarity and growing manager appetite to capture retail flows.

But the composition of those launches reveals where confidence actually sits. Among the new ELTIFs launched in that period, private debt was the dominant asset class with 36 products, ahead of private equity on 16 and infrastructure on 13. Meanwhile, at least 35 of the ELTIFs launched during 2025 were evergreen structures — open-ended formats that allow ongoing subscriptions and periodic liquidity, rather than the fixed-life, capital-call model that has historically made private markets inaccessible to retail investors.

The implication is significant. Private markets opening up is not a uniform trend across the asset class spectrum. One asset class and one structure are currently doing the majority of the work.

Private debt’s dominance is not accidental. The asset class offers characteristics that translate well to a retail context — regular income distributions, relatively predictable cashflows, and return profiles that are easier to explain than the J-curve dynamics of private equity. As Europe’s €1.7 trillion private credit boom continues to reshape corporate finance, the retail distribution channel represents a natural next frontier for managers who have already built institutional-grade platforms and are now looking to broaden their capital base.

The evergreen structure preference is similarly logical. Defined-life fund structures with capital calls and illiquidity windows are workable for sophisticated institutional investors who can plan around them. For retail investors, they are a significant deterrent. Evergreen funds, by offering quarterly or semi-annual liquidity windows and the ability to invest at net asset value without committing to a multi-year lock-up, remove the structural barriers that have historically kept private markets out of reach. As the dynamics of private capital fundraising in Europe continue to evolve, evergreen formats are becoming the default architecture for retail-oriented platforms.

The picture for private equity and infrastructure is more complicated. Both asset classes face real challenges in the retail context — private equity’s return profile is inherently long-dated and volatile in the short term, while infrastructure assets are illiquid, complex to value, and difficult to package for periodic liquidity. The 16 private equity ELTIFs and 13 infrastructure ELTIFs launched in 2025 suggest activity, but at a fraction of the pace seen in private debt.

For managers building new platforms, the product design choices being made now will significantly determine their ability to capture the expected growth in assets under management. A strategy built around private debt in an evergreen structure aligns with where actual demand is forming — both from distributors who need explainable products, and from retail investors who require accessible entry and exit mechanics.

The broader shift also has implications for how capital moves through European markets. As co-investment and the new geometry of private markets restructures relationships between asset managers, sovereign funds and family offices, the addition of a retail layer adds complexity — but also depth and stability of capital that could make European private markets more resilient over time.

The opportunity is real. But the data suggests that managers who approach democratisation as a uniform trend across all private asset classes are misreading the moment. The expansion is happening — it is just happening in private debt, in evergreen structures, and on terms that retail investors can actually engage with. Everything else is still catching up. For European asset managers watching why the EU needs venture capital to build competitive economic infrastructure, the retail distribution question will become increasingly central to how growth capital is mobilised across the continent over the rest of the decade.