Blackstone has held the final close of Blackstone Growth (BXG), its inaugural growth equity fund, which was oversubscribed, at its hard cap of USD4.5 billion in third-party capital commitments from a wide range of family offices, entrepreneurs, endowments, strategic institutional investors, pension funds, high-net-worth individuals, and other investors.
Blackstone says the fund is the largest first-time growth equity private fund raised in history.
Blackstone Growth, Blackstone’s global growth equity business, invests in fast-growing companies, helping them expand their potential through the power of the Blackstone platform. Leveraging Blackstone’s extensive operational resources and network, BXG focuses on providing capital to entrepreneurs seeking to minimise the execution risks associated with high-growth environments.
Since it began investing in 2020, BXG has already made a number of significant investments, including in the online dating company Bumble that recently completed a successful initial public offering; oat milk pioneer, Oatly; leading enterprise software business, ISN; and Epidemic Sound, which delivers restriction-free music to internet content creators across the globe.
Jon Korngold, Global Head of Blackstone Growth, says: “The scale of the resources, operational expertise, and capital that Blackstone can deliver to growth-stage entrepreneurs is a clear differentiator. This new approach to growth equity has already created significant value for the companies we’ve backed, and we are pleased that it has been well-received by a wide range of global investors. We are excited to continue partnering with entrepreneurs around the world as we help them transform their businesses from regional champions into global industry leaders.”
In establishing this business, BXG has sought to reimagine growth equity investing given it began without the encumbrances of a legacy portfolio or an organisational structure that results in an excessive number of portfolio companies. BXG believes that its concentrated approach to portfolio construction, which focuses on a far more curated number of companies than what is typical of growth equity firms, will allow it to deliver more significant operational value to the individual companies in which it invests.
Through BXG, Blackstone can offer growth-stage entrepreneurs potential access to its more than 100 operating professionals and advisors, a group procurement program that purchases on behalf of portfolio companies with more than 450,000 employees, a dedicated team responsible for identifying opportunities for its businesses to sell to its global portfolio companies with more than USD160 billion of combined revenue, more than 880 million square feet of eCommerce logistics assets, its team of dozens of data scientists, and insights gleaned from 25 offices throughout the world.
BXG – which has employees based in New York, San Francisco, and London – seeks to invest in companies with proven business models and with the potential to become global market leaders in partnership with Blackstone. BXG’s primary sector focuses include Financial Services, Enterprise and Consumer Technologies, Healthcare, and Consumer.
