For decades private markets were a members-only club, accessible mainly to pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and the largest institutional players.
That is changing fast.
State Street’s fifth annual Private Markets Study, surveying 480 senior executives across asset owners, asset managers, and private markets specialists in March-April 2026, found that 84% of institutions now manage, invest in, or plan to offer individual-investor-focused private markets vehicles. A trend that extends well beyond the wealth of managers marketing new funds, and into institutional asset owners themselves.
84%
of institutions manage, invest in or plan to offer individual-investor private markets vehicles
From Institutional to Individual
Roughly a third of respondents (35%) are already actively engaged in these vehicles, including 28% of asset owners specifically. Adoption is not even across the map: the Americas lead at 45% already, driven by 49% of US institutions and 63% of Canadian ones, while EMEA (31%) and APAC (30%) are moving more deliberately. North America’s early lead shows up in retail-vehicle adoption too, with 53% of firms currently offering these products compared to just 34% in Europe and the UK. But enthusiasm is cooling slightly, not accelerating.
Last year, 56% of firms expected at least half their new fundraising to come from individual investors within three years; this year that figure dropped to 43%. That’s not a loss of conviction so much as a dose of realism. As the operational and distribution demands of serving individual investors become clearer, firms are recalibrating their timelines rather than their ambitions. Tellingly, wealth and asset managers’ predictions for their own organizations remain bullish, at 47%, then their view of the broader market.
35%
of firms are active in individual-investor private markets
53%
of North American firms offer individual-investor private markets vehicles
Not Just a Retail Story
What is most interesting is who else is getting in on this. Institutional asset owners, the pensions and insurers who do not sell funds to the public, are adopting these same individual investor-style vehicles for their own portfolio benefits. 65% say these structures let them be “more tactical” with their private markets positioning, and 54% cite the ability to deploy capital faster, alongside smaller allocation sizes and more liquid access to illiquid exposure.
Democratization is not just changing who can invest, it is changing how event he biggest institutions operate. On the vehicle side, preferences are shifting too. ETFs are gaining ground as the long-term vehicle of choice, rising from 19% preference in the short term to 32% over three-plus years, while interest in tokenized private assets, despite all the blockchain buzz, is shrinking the further out respondents look. State Street Investment Management has moved early on this front, launching its first ETFs to source private credit exposure for a broader investor base, a sign of where the industry expects flows to concentrate.
65%
of asset owners gain more tactical private markets positioning
54%
of asset owners can deploy capital faster
Opportunity, Not Threat
Despite the operational lift required, the industry’s mood is optimistic: 70% of institutions view democratization as an opportunity rather than a challenge. That optimism varies sharply by region: APAC is the most bullish, with only 20% calling it a challenge, while Europe is the most cautious at 35%. Looking from a slightly different angle, enthusiasm for new product development in this space is even higher in Latin America and the Middle East, at 90% and 87% respectively, compared to 70% globally.
70%
of institutions view democratization as an opportunity
90%
of Latin American firms support new product development
The Bottom Line
Private markets are no longer closed for shops. Institutions are moving carefully to bring individual investors into an asset class once reserved for the largest players, while discovering that the same vehicles bult for that shift also make their own operations more agile. Making that transition work requires the right infrastructure behind it. Charles River for Private Markets, part of State Street Alpha for Private Markets, gives GPs, LPs, and asset owners a single front-to-back platform to manage this new investor base with transparency, scale and control the moment demands.
Want to see how it works for your portfolio? Visit crd.com/CRPM to learn more.
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The material presented is for informational purposes only. The views expressed in this material are the views of the author, and are subject to change based on market and other conditions and factors, moreover, they do not necessarily represent the official views of Charles River Development and/or State Street Corporation and its affiliates.