From big checks to talk of a ‘broken’ IPO market, the Tiger Cubs are back in love with private deals

• Asset managers like Coatue, D1, Tiger Global, and more are diving into the private markets again.

• This cohort of funds, known as the Tiger Cubs, helped fuel private market valuations in 2020 and 2021.

• After a tough 2022, these funds are once again allocating big money to private companies.

The Tiger Cubs are on the hunt — and they’re ready to pounce on private market opportunities.

Big-name asset managers such as Tiger Global, Coatue, and D1 — a group collectively known as Tiger Cubs, given their connections to the late Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management — are back to investing in private markets, talking about start-ups, and fundraising for non-public strategies.

These managers, once burned by the 2022 tech market rout, when soaring interest rates and plunging valuations forced them to retreat, are now riding the artificial intelligence boom in big-name tech stocks and late-stage private companies alike. In private markets specifically, there’s been a slight uptick in the number of deals these crossover investors have done in 2025 compared to the last two years, and a significant jump in the size of checks they’ve been writing.

PitchBook data shows that the median valuation of private companies in which Tiger Global has invested so far in 2025 is more than $2 billion, compared to roughly $300 million in 2022. The venture rounds and private deals these funds have done this year are, on average, significantly larger than what they were doing three years ago, according to PitchBook.

Even with public equity markets as strong as ever, hitting record highs in late October before a dip at the start of the month, private markets are where hedge-fund stockpickers hoping to distinguish themselves from cheap index investors and run-of-the-mill mutual funds are flocking.

D1 founder Dan Sundheim, who originally made his name in the industry compiling deep dives on potential short bets of public companies in an online investing forum, said “public markets bring distraction and pressure” to top startups.

“Many private companies would do better staying private,” Sundheim said on a podcast with Stripe cofounder John Collison last month.

The public markets are desperate for new entrants, but the “IPO market is broken beyond repair,” according to Coatue’s founder, Philippe Laffont, who invests across both public and private tech companies.

Investing in private companies has become an easier way to bet on long-term potential, he said, thanks in part to the efficiency and number of players in the public markets.