How to Choose Among the Top 10 NAV Lenders in 2026

17Capital is one of the most established dedicated NAV finance specialists in the private equity market.

The firm provides NAV loans to private equity buyout funds through its Credit platform and financing to private equity management companies through its Strategic Lending business.

17Capital reports more than $18 billion deployed across more than 130 transactions.

Its NAV loans are typically designed around diversified portfolios managed by established private equity sponsors.

Common uses include increasing investment capacity, financing additional acquisitions, refinancing debt and generating liquidity.

17Capital generally emphasizes conservative loan-to-value ratios, diversified collateral and portfolio distributions as a source of repayment.

That makes it particularly relevant to institutional private equity sponsors with mature portfolios.

Hark Capital is another dedicated NAV finance specialist.

The firm has focused on fund financing since 2013 and provides NAV-based loans, GP and management company financing and customized private-market financing structures.

Hark reports more than $2.1 billion of deployed capital across more than 70 sponsors.

Its NAV loans can support follow-on investments, portfolio liquidity, capital structure optimization and other fund-level objectives.

Hark is particularly interesting because its business has historically focused on middle-market private equity sponsors rather than exclusively competing for the largest institutional transactions.

Its customized financing activity can also include concentrated portfolios and portfolios of LP interests.

Pemberton has built a dedicated NAV Financing strategy within its broader private credit platform.

Its NAV strategy provides financing against the underlying value of performing private equity portfolios, primarily through senior secured loans.

The strategy focuses on European and U.S. private equity buyout funds, GPs and LPs.

Typical uses include additional platform investments, bolt-on acquisitions, further investment into existing portfolio companies and capital structure optimization.

Pemberton closed its first NAV Financing Core Fund at approximately $1.7 billion in 2025.

Its positioning is particularly institutional, emphasizing diversified portfolios and relatively conservative senior lending.

Carlyle AlpInvest operates a substantial Portfolio Finance business alongside its private equity secondaries, primary investment and co-investment activities.

Its portfolio finance strategy provides financing to private equity funds, LP portfolios and general partners.

That breadth is important.

A borrower may have a liquidity requirement that can be addressed through senior NAV financing, structured portfolio financing, a secondary transaction or another capital solution.

AlpInvest has been active in portfolio finance since 2018 and has deployed billions of dollars through the strategy.

For sophisticated institutional sponsors, the combination of portfolio financing and secondaries expertise can be particularly useful.

Apollo's Sponsor and Secondary Solutions business, known as S3, provides financing and liquidity solutions to private-market asset managers and limited partners.

Its financing capabilities specifically include NAV-based fund finance, fund-secured lending and secured management-company financing.

The platform can also provide preferred equity, mezzanine capital and other structured liquidity solutions.

That means Apollo can potentially address transactions that do not fit neatly into a conventional senior NAV loan.

The platform operates across private equity, private credit, infrastructure and real estate.

For large sponsors, the ability to evaluate several forms of private-market liquidity from one platform can be valuable.

Arcmont operates a dedicated NAV Financing strategy focused on the private equity ecosystem.

Its strategy covers three broad forms of portfolio financing.

At the fund level, financing may provide additional capital for acquisitions, reduce asset-level debt or bridge financing requirements.

At the GP level, capital can support GP commitments, ownership transactions and strategic growth.

At the LP level, NAV financing can provide liquidity against a portfolio of fund interests and finance capital calls.

Arcmont emphasizes diversified asset-backed lending, conservative LTVs and senior structures.

Large investment banks are also important NAV lenders.

Goldman Sachs explicitly includes private equity and credit-backed NAV loans within its Fund Financing capabilities.

Bank NAV financing can be particularly attractive when the borrower has a highly diversified portfolio, substantial scale and an established institutional relationship.

Banks can often provide competitively priced senior capital where the transaction meets their underwriting requirements.

The trade-off can be flexibility.

Bank facilities may involve conservative advance rates, detailed eligibility requirements, substantial documentation and tight covenant packages.

For the right portfolio, that may still produce the most efficient financing.

J.P. Morgan is another major participant in fund finance and has publicly discussed the growing use of NAV lending.

NAV lending typically becomes more relevant later in the life of a private equity fund.

Early in a fund's life, borrowing capacity may be supported primarily by investor commitments through a subscription facility.

As those commitments are deployed, the fund's economic value increasingly sits in its underlying portfolio companies.

NAV financing allows lenders to underwrite that portfolio value instead.

For established private equity managers with diversified portfolios and significant banking relationships, a global bank such as J.P. Morgan can represent an important source of fund-level financing.

Ares operates one of the world's largest alternative investment platforms across credit, private equity, infrastructure and secondaries.

Its private-market activities include structured liquidity solutions, and Ares has discussed NAV loans as a mechanism that allows sponsors to generate liquidity without selling underlying assets.

The size and breadth of the Ares platform make it relevant to large and complicated private-market transactions.

A borrower may require something more flexible than a conventional bank NAV facility.

The transaction may involve structured credit, secondary liquidity, preferred capital or another portfolio solution.

Large alternative managers can be particularly useful when the financing requires substantial capital and bespoke underwriting.

Many of the largest NAV lenders primarily compete for institutional private equity funds.

Family offices often occupy a different segment of the market.

Nodem focuses specifically on NAV facilities for family offices, GPs, LPs, investment holding companies and other private-asset holders.

The firm states that it typically considers NAV financing transactions from approximately $15 million to more than $100 million.

Its family-office strategy can include private equity fund interests, venture capital portfolios, operating businesses and other alternative investments.

Nodem also offers structures using payment-in-kind interest, which can be useful where the underlying private assets generate irregular cash distributions.

That makes it particularly relevant to family offices whose portfolios may not resemble traditional institutional private equity funds.