Sunaina Sinha Haldea Breaks Down Private Equity and VC's Next Chapter

Forbes

5 hours ago

Sunaina Sinha Haldea, Global Head of Private Capital Advisory at Raymond James
Over a virtual tea with her in London and me in New York, Sunaina Sinha Haldea speaks with the precision of an engineer and the instincts of a dealmaker, decoding the power plays and pressure points driving the next era of private equity. She's worked across the private capital spectrum—advising GPs and LPs on fundraising, secondaries, and strategic transactions—now serving as Global Head of Private Capital Advisory at Raymond James, following the acquisition of her firm Cebile Capital in 2021. Her experience spans asset classes from hedge funds to private equity and venture capital, and she honed her skills at top-tier firms including Bridgewater Associates and Brevan Howard, giving her a panoramic view of where capital flows—and where it breaks down.
Her authority comes from lived experience. Raised between Delhi, Lagos, Harare, and Hanoi, Sinha Haldea holds two engineering degrees from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard. She began her career in the U.S., then moved to the U.K., building a career that now spans four continents and cultures. That global breadth shaped her ability to bridge analytical rigor with relationship-driven advisory. In 2011, she founded Cebile Capital, which rapidly became a top-tier placement and secondaries advisory firm. Known for her deep ties to GPs and LPs, she's been named one of the most influential people in private equity by multiple industry rankings for several years in a row. Since joining Raymond James post-acquisition, she has advised on over $200 billion in fund placements and secondaries for one of the few bulge-bracket firms still investing in a robust private capital advisory platform.
She also defies the archetype of a finance insider. A certified sommelier who prefers a great glass of wine to the usual golf course dealmaking, she meditates daily to stay centered while raising three children and serving as Chairman of SFC Energy, a publicly listed German clean energy company. Healthy living is a priority for her; she doesn't just do Pilates, she once chaired the board of Barrecore, the U.K.'s largest and fastest-growing boutique fitness business.
Forget the glossy profiles—this is a front-row seat to how private equity markets are being rewritten in real time. From megafunds buying vets, pet stores, and tech businesses to zombie funds quietly dying, this conversation with Haldea pulls back the curtain on a PE ecosystem in flux, where secondaries are now due diligence tools, placement agents are shunning venture, and retail investors and sovereigns are reshaping the LP base.
In this candid conversation, Haldea explains why liquidity is drying up, secondaries are replacing markups, and the next generation of firms will be defined not by stage, but by strategy, adaptability, and platform scale.
Today, she's raising a red flag: liquidity is evaporating, and only the most adaptable firms are staying afloat.
Private markets are experiencing a paradox: exits are rare, capital is scarce, yet markups remain high on paper. GPs are touting IRR, but LPs are now laser-focused on DPI (distributions to paid-in capital). With exit timelines stretched and debt-heavy balance sheets, many funds are still sitting on companies that raised at 2021 peak valuations. 'We're not in a valuation correction—we're in a performance reckoning,' says Haldea.
The secondaries market is proving to be a saving grace for private markets. Today, the largest secondaries fund rivals the size and scale of the largest megacap funds. Continuation vehicles have become a mainstay exit option for managers to generate DPI for their investors—an invaluable option for liquidity in a market reeling from one M&A downturn to another.
Not all secondaries are pricing well. Discounts are becoming brutal for some parts of the private markets ecosystem. According to The Information, some VC funds are now selling on the secondaries market for as little as 35 cents on the dollar—a stark indicator of how disconnected IRR can be from actual liquidity.
Hundreds of zombie funds that haven't returned capital and can't raise again are approaching an inflection point. LPs are unwilling to recycle capital into underperforming firms, especially those without a credible path to liquidity.
Fundraising for traditional early-stage venture has become nearly impossible without realized returns. Most placement agents are walking away from VC mandates.
'It's too difficult to raise,' she says bluntly.
'VC used to be about moonshots. Now it's about cash flow.'
The structural convergence between VC and PE is one of the most dramatic shifts. Lightspeed, Sequoia, and a16z now operate multi-strategy platforms, including continuation vehicles, NAV lending, buyouts, and direct acquisitions of portfolio companies.
General Catalyst just led a $1 billion non-dilutive funding deal for Grammarly, signaling the rise of structured, private-credit-style investments by venture firms. Rather than taking equity, GC provided long-term capital via a royalty-style agreement tied to Grammarly's future revenue—blurring the lines between venture, private equity, and credit.
Firms are building vertically integrated ecosystems out of necessity, not just ambition.
Private wealth has fundamentally changed the LP base, but it comes with challenges in education and transparency.
Platforms like Moonfare, Fundrise, and Yieldstreet are democratizing access to private equity. Haldea's team saw the opportunity in private wealth early.
'Private wealth has been the great inflow of capital into the asset class. It fundamentally changes the nature of the investor mix in private markets.'
Still, she cautions:
'Access without understanding is dangerous.'
PE and VC products are complex, illiquid, and often misunderstood. Structuring products that make sense for the retail market is critical to ensuring the asset class remains accessible—and responsible.
The dollar's drop post-tariff announcements is hitting NAVs and cross-border fundraising. Meanwhile, LPs are eyeing AI with increasing skepticism.
'Capital is chasing AI, but how that materializes into profits remains to be seen. Clearly, it is changing the game,' Haldea notes.
Scale AI, for instance, missed revenue projections, highlighting the growing gap between hype and performance. In its recent deal with Meta, Big Tech avoided an outright acquisition—opting instead to carve off talent and data access. It's a cheaper strategy and skirts regulatory scrutiny.
With Meta's investment, Scale traded neutrality for scale—and now faces a trust deficit that threatens its business model, even as its valuation doubles.
Secondaries are no longer just a liquidity release valve—they've become a pricing mechanism and due diligence filter.
'Secondaries are where the real pricing happens. They're the truth serum for the private markets.'
LPs are using secondaries data not only to benchmark GP health but also to stress-test return pacing and exit risk—giving them a sharper lens into fund quality.
Even as the IPO window cracks open, reality bites. Every VC-backed IPO in the past 12 months has been a down round. According to The Information, just 15 U.S. VC-backed companies went public during that period, raising a combined $4.6 billion—a fraction of the 2021 frenzy.
High-profile listings like Reddit, Astera Labs, Rubrik, and Ibotta may have generated buzz, but most IPOs were enterprise-focused and relatively niche. The average time from founding to IPO now exceeds a decade. While some saw strong opening-day pops, long-term performance remains mixed.
The takeaway: liquidity is back—but not on founders' or investors' terms. The pipeline remains frozen for many, and secondaries have become a favored alternative to avoid the reputational and financial sting of public markdowns.
In addition to traditional LPs, capital is increasingly coming from newer sources. Haldea notes a surge of activity from family offices, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, and Asian insurance companies—investors drawn to the perceived stability of later-stage deals and secondaries.
Another structural shift? Institutional investors like sovereign wealth funds and most private equity firms are bypassing early-stage startups in favor of elite late-stage companies, focusing on the profitable ones. According to PitchBook, these nontraditional investors are concentrating their dry powder on unicorns—companies valued at $1 billion or more—with perceived lower risk and faster paths to liquidity.
Late-stage valuations are inflating again, even as early-stage founders face a brutal fundraising climate.
'Capital consolidation is real,' says Haldea. 'In a risk-off environment, LPs and crossover investors want winners—at scale.'
This bifurcation is reshaping the venture market: a squeeze at the bottom, a glut at the top.
One of the most striking developments in today's capital landscape is the rise of megafunds that operate like full-stack platforms. General Catalyst—once a traditional VC firm—has redefined its ambitions. Last year, it tapped LPs for $8 billion. Its assets under management have ballooned from $3.8 billion to over $36 billion in the past decade.
According to PitchBook, General Catalyst and archrival Andreessen Horowitz together captured nearly 20% of all U.S. venture capital commitments last year, cementing their dominance.
The firm's recent acquisition of Summa Health, a nonprofit hospital system in Ohio, marked a bold move into operating infrastructure. It sees the hospital as a proving ground for AI-first care delivery.
Since 2018, General Catalyst has also launched:
As Forbes reports, this operational model reflects a broader bet: venture firms will increasingly behave like ecosystem architects, not just financiers.
'We're seeing venture firms act like strategic operators,' says Haldea. 'That's a profound shift—and a bet that access to real infrastructure will differentiate returns.'
But not everyone is convinced. Some critics argue General Catalyst's industrial-scale strategy is drifting from classic venture capital. Quiet concerns circulate that the firm's focus has moved from backing breakout startups to 'farming fees' across its many products and verticals.
To Haldea, the firm's evolution underscores a hard truth:
'The future belongs to platforms,' she says. 'The firms that survive will combine capital, infrastructure, and influence—not just term sheets.'
Transparency and adaptability are becoming the true differentiators in a market that once rewarded moonshots and opacity. Whether it's family offices hunting for yield, sovereign wealth funds building geopolitical strategies, or megafunds reinventing the firm model altogether, one thing is clear: the lines between private equity and venture capital are not just blurring—they're being redrawn.
For Sunaina Sinha Haldea, that transformation isn't a risk—it's a roadmap.
'This isn't the end of an era,' Haldea says. 'It's the beginning of a more profound one.'
There is an alternate view where mega-large rounds—typically reserved for public markets—are now the new pre-IPO asset class: essentially, a very late-stage form of venture capital. Early-stage venture won't disappear, but it may flatten or shrink as capital consolidates at the top. If LPs see opportunity, large firms will expand downward to fill the gap.