Baird Capital’s 2024 Recap

Highlights | Investment Activity | Talent Investments | Our Culture

After a couple of challenging years in the M&A market, 2024 feels like a transitional year, moving into what is expected to be a more robust M&A cycle. While there was anticipation for a meaningful rebound in deal activity in 2024, much of the macroeconomic tailwinds didn’t fully materialize. We dealt with significant geo-political dynamics, a contentious presidential election and overall market volatility. Given these factors, the market indicators were mixed, with the private equity and venture market up 25% in terms of deal value but down 6.5% in deal volume. 

Importantly, the ingredients for a more robust 2025 are in place. We continue to see stable interest rates, a positive economic outlook and a more friendly regulatory environment, creating an overall “risk-on” sentiment among investors.  With close to $1 trillion and $400 billion in private equity and venture dry powder, respectively¹, we expect deal activity to accelerate in 2025.

As for Baird Capital, 2024 was an extremely productive year across the platform, and I’m proud of what our team accomplished. Our focus on lower middle market, founder-owned, B2B Tech & Services companies with resilient business models has proven to be a durable investment strategy. In the last 12 months, we deployed over $50 million of new and follow-on capital and generated investment proceeds of $200 million in a challenging exit environment.

As we look forward to 2025, our focus will continue to be prudent capital deployment and preparing our more mature companies for exit. In addition, we’ll continue to foster the next generation of talent on our platform while focusing every day on enhancing our culture and internal processes.

We appreciate your continued trust and partnership in this dynamic and ever-changing environment.  We have a strong, diverse and experienced team that is actively managing our funds through these challenging, yet exciting times. We look forward to 2025 and the opportunity to deliver value to our investors.

Gordon Pan
President, Baird Capital

2024 Highlights

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