Which way is the wind blowing?

Private Equity on the up, IPO market comes alive and start-ups soar. Really?

Hello Rainmakers,

We get bombarded with data. We also get love bombed with quotes about how delighted everyone is when they sign off on a deal completed, always with an “undisclosed” amount.

Sometimes it’s just guff, but often there are some good indicators worth looking through.

We’ll look at the debut of The Beauty Tech Group later, including what Mercia’s Dr Mark Payton said, describing it as a great example of the potential of the UK’s regions, but also of “the power of venture capital” in helping them scale and great case study for what the Mansion House Compact can achieve.

Hope you enjoy this. Rainmakers subscribers get (at least) two unique pieces a week, but also full access to our back catalogue of investigations, scoops, and insights, including updates like this one from The Secret Investor, interviews with entrepreneurs, and the leaders from VC and PE investors like Endless, and River Capital, Foresight, Mercia, Puma and LDC.

Private Equity investing and exit activity continued to rebound, as headwinds fuelled by increased uncertainty in Q2 began turning into tailwinds, according to Pitchbook data.

Fundraising struggled to keep pace, falling 22% year-over-year to $309.8 billion in the first three quarters of 2025. But Q3 deal value remained elevated from large-scale pacts—including the $55 billion planned take-private of Electronic Arts—and exit counts ticked up as more sponsors returned to the market to sell portfolio companies.

Foresight sneaked out a line in their trading update that the “multi vintage roll out” of the regional private equity strategy has continued with a £90 million first close of a 16th regional fund.

Foresight also said £223 million has been raised into higher margin retail vehicles even though the first phase of the fundraising was “slower than originally anticipated”, they seem confident that it will achieve its target fund size of €1.25 billion by mid-2027.

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Research from R3, the UK’s trade body for restructuring, turnaround and insolvency professionals which undertakes an analysis of data from Creditsafe, shows that the number of new businesses started in all UK regions rose in September 2025 to 7,485 new businesses compared to September 2024 when there were 6,044 new start-ups.

Wales (35%), the North East (29%) and West Midlands (26%) saw the three largest increases in new business formations with the North West recording the fourth highest growth in start-up activity across the UK over the period by 24%.

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So does this play out in the day to day trading of advisory businesses?

It’s worth looking at Clearwater, the corporate finance advisory firm, which has swept the board at our recent Rainmaker Awards, after they revealed a buoyant first half to its financial year.

And which sector has driven activity? Private equity.

Twenty of Clearwater’s deals this year have involved private equity backing which has been driven a strong appetite from funds to deploy significant capital reserves in industries including technology, business services and financial services, which accounted for three quarters of the total.

Notable transactions during the period included plenty that we’ve covered including Vitruvian Partners buying York-based Great Rail Journeys, with Duke Street exiting.

Pollen Street Capital’s majority stake in Manchester-based Leonard Curtis, marking Clearwater’s 20th professional services deal in the UK over the past three years.