Ardian alumni's Clipway breaks debut secondaries record at $6.4B

Clipway , a London-based firm set up by a team of Ardian veterans, has reached a $6.4 billion final close on its maiden fund—a global record for a debut secondaries vehicle.

The raise defies a trend toward capital consolidating around scale incumbents, as it leverages an AI-driven sourcing system built to compete with much larger rivals.

The firm—which was set up just three years ago by a founding team including Vincent Gombault, Ingmar Vallano, and Benoît Verbrugghe—started raising its first fund, Clipway Secondary Fund I, in 2023 with a $4 billion target.

The fund closes 60% above its original goal and drew commitments from 186 LPs, with Europe supplying 44% of capital, North and Latin America 21%, the Middle East 18% and Asia 17%. Some of the firm's strategic partners include Mubadala Investment Company , Carmignac and General Atlantic.

Clipway sets itself apart by embedding its own tech-enabled system, TESS, throughout its investment process—a database covering more than 38,500 private companies that screens and underwrites deals before a human reviews them.

"We are quite heavily focused on LP-led secondaries," Vallano told PitchBook. "And the idea of setting up a new company was really to focus on the use of technology to help approach the market—same old-fashioned strategy, but really approaching it in a more modern way."

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The raise makes CSF I the largest debut secondaries fund on record, surpassing Apollo Global Management 's $5.4 billion S3 Equity and Hybrid Solutions Fund I, which closed in May 2025.

LPs backing Clipway's debut fund weren't just betting on the technology. They were also drawn to the firm's pedigree.

Gombault co-founded Paris-based Ardian and was global head of funds of funds and private debt until his departure in December 2020. Vallano was senior managing director for fund-of-funds and co-investment until 2021, and Verbrugghe led Ardian USA and sat on its executive committee.

According to PitchBook's Q1 2026 Global Private Market Fundraising Report , Clipway's close comes as secondaries fundraising success is increasingly concentrated among managers with scale, differentiated access, and established LP relationships, even as overall dealmaking momentum holds up.

According to the firm, two-thirds of the transaction volume deployed was sourced on a proprietary and off-market basis.

CSF I focuses on diversified LP-led secondary transactions in North America and Western European buyout funds. The firm has completed more than $6 billion of transaction volume, diversified across 1,403 companies in 177 funds.

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