UKUnited KingdomIndividual investor
Baillie Gifford

Capital at risk

Private companies

At Baillie Gifford, we have a longstanding history of partnering with exceptional companies.

When new technologies unlock markets that couldn't previously exist, outlier companies emerge to seize their moment. Often arising in private markets, their leaders are restlessly creative individuals who aim to overturn the status quo. It takes tenacity to achieve true leaps forward – but pioneers also need support. We seek to find these companies and patiently provide them with capital to help them thrive into the next decade.

Two People Overlooking The Horizon And Clouds In The Valley Below From Top Of Mountain​.

Fuelling outliers

We back ambitious, fast-growing companies wherever they are, across any sector or geography. We root our investment strategy in patience, recognising it takes time for these businesses to transform industries and gain an enduring advantage. This is what ultimately drives value for our clients.

Private markets have grown and companies are staying private for longer. That means an increasing share of new technologies’ value creation is occurring in the private space. Frequently, just as these firms start to move from scaling up to industry leadership, they search for investors suited for this next chapter. Our structures let us invest when a firm is private and continue to hold after it becomes public. This allows for closer alignment between our clients and the companies their capital helps fund. To us, a listing can be just another funding round.

A proven track record

We are longstanding shareholders in many trailblazing companies. We first invested in Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, HelloFresh, Spotify, Tempus AI and Wise when they were still private. And we continue to own stakes in them on behalf of our clients, often holding a multiple of the shares we held before they went public.

In many ways, we see this as a continuation of our heritage in public markets, where we have backed Amazon, ASML, Tesla and other innovators for over a decade, staying invested through periods of volatility.

We made our first private company investment in 2012 and have since selectively deployed over $9bn into more than 100 such high-potential businesses. Our current private portfolio includes ByteDance, Epic Games, FlixBus, Stripe and SpaceX.

Private company investments

$9.1 billion

As at: March 2024

Number of companies

140+

As at: March 2024

Years of private investing

12

As at: March 2024

Taking the long view

Conviction

Baillie Gifford has invested in growth companies for over a century. We are proud of our reputation for long-term thinking, in-house research and strong relationships with like-minded clients. At the end of 2023, we had over £225bn of assets under management.

Patience

We describe our house style as ‘running our winners’. When we back a company, our instinct is to let returns compound over time rather than limit ourselves to short-term gains. That makes us an investor of choice for ambitious leaders planning their firm’s next stages of expansion.

Stability

We conduct much of our private company funding via investment trusts. They draw on pools of permanent capital, which are unaffected by their own share price moves. So, irrespective of a company’s timeline to go public, we focus on supporting its efforts to achieve its full potential and deliver strong returns over the long term.

View video transcript

What does Baillie Gifford do?

We are an independent investment manager founded in Edinburgh. Much has changed in our 114 years, but our focus on seeking superior, long-term investment returns for our clients has not.

We aim to find game-changing companies and other assets that can sustain growth and remain resilient in a changing world for decades to come.

Investments

We invest in businesses that push boundaries and drive transformational change. For more than a decade, we’ve funded and forged relationships with private companies. Explore some of them here.

Disclaimer

Please note that when you click on any external site hypertext link, you will leave our site and access the external site at your own risk. Baillie Gifford does not sponsor, maintain or have any control over the contents of other websites. Therefore, we are not responsible for the adequacy or accuracy of any of the information you may view, nor do we undertake to ensure successful transmission to any linked website.

Expertise and enthusiasm

Find out what drives our investment managers and other specialists to support the next generation of ambitious, fast-growing companies.

Meet the team

Our expertise

We are dedicated to supporting extraordinary leaders to build landmark companies. In doing so, our Private Companies Team works with decision-makers and other specialists across Baillie Gifford’s research floor, some of whom invest in both private and public markets. This improves our understanding of the industries and opportunities involved. Explore our profiles:

We have tried to break down an artificial divide between private and public companies because it’s in the interest of our clients and the companies we back.
Peter Singlehurst

Get in touch

Get to know the individuals on our team above, or contact the team via email.

Email Private Companies Team

Insights

Learn more about the private companies we back and our long-term approach to investing.

The hidden costs of software

A decade ago, software companies were venture-backed and capital-light. That’s no longer true.
Read more
October 2023
Article

Related insights

  1. The hidden costs of software

    A decade ago, software companies were venture-backed and capital-light. That’s no longer true.
    October 2023
    Article

  2. Private companies

    Investment Specialist Rachael Callaghan on how we can seize opportunities and help great growth companies thrive.
    September 2023
    Video3 minutes

  3. Why the distinction between public and private markets is wrong

    Peter Singlehurst discusses private company investing on the 20VC podcast.
    August 2022
    External link

  4. Why private companies matter more

    SpaceX, Epic Games and Stripe: the list of the unlisted continues to grow. How can investors benefit?
    March 2022
    Podcast21 minutes

  5. A private companies approach to ESG

    The special considerations at play when we invest in high-growth, late-stage unlisted firms.
    February 2022
    Article

  6. The Second Space Age

    Fifty years after Apollo 11, can a fresh wave of innovation in space technology open new frontiers and promising investment opportunities? Investment manager, Luke Ward looks across the gulf of space and gives us his views.
    March 2020
    Document