Alts Fundraising Tops $104B Through July, Down 12% on Credit Slump
Alternative investment fundraising totaled $104.3 billion through July 2026, down 12% from $118.6 billion in the same period of 2025, according to the latest analysis from investment banking firm Robert A. Stanger & Co. The decline remained concentrated in credit strategies, where year-to-date fundraising fell 43% to $35.8 billion from $62.3 billion. Excluding credit, fundraising increased 22% year-over-year to $68.5 billion.
Hard assets extended their gains into the third quarter. HALO strategies – hard assets with low obsolescence, consisting of real estate and infrastructure – raised $34 billion through July, up 36% from $25 billion through July last year. Infrastructure remained the strongest contributor to hard asset growth, raising $17.6 billion through July, up 66% from the same period in 2025. Real estate strategies raised $16.4 billion, up 14%. Together, the two categories have accounted for about one-third of total alternative investment fundraising through July.
Year-to-date 2026 gross fundraising by investment strategy, compared with the same period in 2025, is summarized below.
“The market crossed $100 billion in July, but the more telling story is where that capital is going,” said Kevin T. Gannon, chairman and chief executive officer of Stanger. “More than half of the capital raised year-to-date has come in through private placements rather than publicly registered programs, and hard assets have now outraised credit for four consecutive months. We expect that pattern to remain a defining feature of the market in the second half.”
Year-to-date gross fundraising through July, by product category (e.g., real estate investment trusts, business development companies), compared with prior years, is summarized in the table.
Annual and year-to-date net capital formation for publicly registered net asset value REITs and BDCs is summarized in the tables below. Net fundraising has swung positive for the first time in years: after three straight years of net outflows from 2023 to 2025, the total through June 2026 shows net fundraising of $1.004 billion.
The turnaround is coming almost entirely from redemptions, not fresh capital: redemptions have been shrinking steadily, from about $18.4 billion in 2023 to about $3.4 billion through June 2026, while gross fundraising has also kept falling, from nearly $10.2 billion in 2023 to about $3.5 billion through June. The category is stabilizing on lower redemption pressure even as new capital raised continues to shrink. NAV for the category sits at $86.5 billion, up from $83.4 billion at the end of 2025.
Net BDC fundraising has reversed. After peaking at $37.5 billion in 2025, the category posted negative net fundraising of nearly $3.2 billion through June 2026, the first negative period in the five years shown. Redemptions are accelerating faster than gross fundraising can offset: redemptions reached $12.67 billion through June alone, already exceeding both full-year 2024’s $3.69 billion and full-year 2025’s $11.5 billion, while gross fundraising fell to just $7.1 billion for the half-year (versus nearly $44.4 billion for all of 2025).
“Redemption pressure has moderated to its lowest level in more than four years, and net capital formation is now positive after three consecutive years of net outflows,” Gannon said. “The BDC market remains in a more demanding phase, with redemptions running well ahead of new capital. We watched the REIT market navigate through this cycle, and we expect the BDC market to follow a similar path.”
The top 20 sponsors by year-to-date gross fundraising are shown below. The top five are Blackstone (14% market share), Ares Management Corporation (10%), KKR & Co. (8%), StepStone Private Wealth (6%), and Cliffwater (5%).
Founded in 1978, Robert A. Stanger & Co. Inc. is an investment banking firm providing advisory, valuation, and capital markets services to real estate investment trusts, partnerships, and related entities.
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