2025: A Year in Review
Building the foundations and forming the future
“The scaffolding is now in place"
Over the past year, we’ve seen the world move from platform upgrades and early AI experiments into the beginnings of true adoption. For Hg, this marks a shift from defining and building the capabilities of AI to diffusion, a phase where progress no longer comes from experimentation alone, but from acceleration. Proving why a catalyst is now essential to push diffusion forward at scale.
As ever, our progress is grounded in Hg’s 25-year culture of continuous improvement. What comes next is defined by sustained product innovation: delivering new products that create new value.
Hg at the end of 2025*
~$30bn
software & services proceeds returned 3.0x gross MOIC / 31%+ gross IRR
+$185bn
aggregate EV of the Hg portfolio
$100bn
+ Assets under management
130+
total software and services investments (200+ total)
430+
employees across London, Munich, New York, Paris, San Francisco & Singapore
300+
GenAI projects live across the portfolio
Professor Neil Lawrence on vulnerability, accountability and why the next generation will thrive
From oil rigs to Amazon’s machine learning division and now Cambridge’s DeepMind Chair, Professor Neil Lawrence brings a refreshingly grounded perspective to AI in this latest episode of the Orbit Podcast. He introduces his “atomic human” concept; arguing it's not our capabilities but our vulnerabilities that make us irreplaceable. Drawing on experiences watching his coding assistant try to claim authorship and building systems at Amazon, he illuminates why accountability requires skin in the game and why machines can never truly stand behind decisions the way humans must.
The conversation builds to a genuinely uplifting conclusion about the next generation. It's a perfect note to end the year on: pragmatic, human-centered, and genuinely hopeful.
Our portfolio in numbers
A resilient year in our ecosystem of software and services champions
(as at 30 September 2025)
55+
Portfolio companies
+130k
portfolio employees
+18%
portfolio sales growth LTM
+$26bn
total revenue of our companies
Highlights from 2025
Steven Batchelor and Jean-Baptiste (“JB”) Brian will become Managing Partners and Co-CEOs, supporting the next phase of the firm’s development, reinforcing Hg’s position as the only transatlantic investor of scale in software and workplace automation technology.
Catalyst will bring a scaled capacity of over 80 elite AI engineers, product managers, and designers who work directly within portfolio companies to build production-grade AI products that generate real customer value.
25 years is long time in technology. When Hg spun out of Mercury Asset Management in 2000, just 6% of the world was online. Since then, we’ve grown into one of the world’s leading software investors. Explore our story.
Software Leadership Gathering 2025: Accelerated Intelligence
This year we brought together an exclusive group of 100+ senior leaders from some of the most valuable software businesses, representing over $700bn in enterprise value, to explore our theme "Accelerated Intelligence: Reinventing the future of software." Against the backdrop of unprecedented AI advancement, we convened industry pioneers to examine how artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping software products, business models, and organisations.
Silicon Valley Leadership Summit
With a mission to make the latest technologies available to the world of business, it’s only natural that AI is front of mind. Our 2025 Leadership Summit in Silicon Valley was a fully immersive and consciously practical, two-day event for CEOs and Chairs to get some AI 'Immersion Therapy' within the West Coast ecosystem and to share ideas with peers and experts operating at the cutting edge of GenAI.
Portfolio news
A peak into a year full of successful movement in our portfolio
EQT, Hg and TA-owned IFS valued at EUR 15 billion in minority stake sale
Continue readingP&I secures further backing from Hg in €5.5 billion transaction
Continue readingPayworks announces strategic investment from Hg
Continue readingA-LIGN announces strategic investment from Hg
Continue readingEQT, Hg and TA-owned IFS valued at EUR 15 billion in minority stake sale
Continue readingP&I secures further backing from Hg in €5.5 billion transaction
Continue readingPayworks announces strategic investment from Hg
Continue readingA-LIGN announces strategic investment from Hg
Continue readingConversations with software leaders on Hg's Orbit Podcast
Fevered determination: Building Zalos from zero to enterprise in 5 weeks
William Fairbairn, founder of Zalos.ai and part of Y Combinator's class of 2025, reveals what it takes to build at Silicon Valley velocity.
Trust, velocity, and building the Answer Engine: Dmitry Shevelenko
Perplexity's Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko reveals how a company barely three years old is mounting the first credible challenge to Google's search dominance in two decades.
The long road to the last mile: reflecting on 25 years of Hg
In this candid anniversary conversation, Hg's leadership team of Matthew Brockman and Nic Humphries reflects on 25 years of building one of Europe's most focused software investors.
AI, Control Points, and the Next Wave of Vertical SaaS
Tidemark Capital founder Dave Yuan shares his journey from Bain consultant to building one of the most thoughtful voices in vertical SaaS investing.
Footnotes
All facts and figures as at 30 September 2025, adjusted for post period events, including realised and partially realised software & services investments made post-independence from 2001 to 2025. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up as a result of market and currency fluctuations and investors may not get back the amount they originally invested.
Hg
*~$30bn software & services proceeds returned at 3.0x / 31% (*Proceeds translated from GBP to USD as at 30-Sep-25 FX. Excludes co-invesmtent proceeds.)
>$160bn EV (*based on Q3 adjusted PF for post-period events)
130+ total software & services investments (200+ total investments overall) (*based on Q3 adjusted PF for post-period events)
55+ current platform investments
14 new platform investments (*includes new platform investments into existing portfolio companies)
Portfolio
+$26bn total revenue (*as at 30 September 2025)
+18% portfolio sales growth LTM - These figures represent LTM 30 September 2025 sales and EBITDA growth of the investments held by HgCapital Trust plc (100% Hg portfolio), calculated on a weighted basis, based on the respective gross valuations of the underlying investments. HgT, whose shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange, gives private and institutional investors the opportunity to participate in all Hg's investments.