About Aqualis

• Founded: 2023

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

• Strategy: GP-led secondaries, platform growth deals

• Leadership: Cari Lodge, founder and managing partner

Aqualis is raising its first dedicated secondaries fund focused on platform growth deals. The UK-based manager views secondaries as a faster route to building scale than traditional fundraising cycles, particularly for backing asset managers seeking to expand their footprints through acquisitions or operational capital.

The debut fund positions Aqualis in a crowded segment where GP-led continuation vehicles and LP portfolio sales dominate secondary market volume. Recent data from Lazard shows GP-led transactions accounted for roughly 50% of the $130bn secondary market in 2023, with platform growth deals — where secondaries capital funds organic expansion or M&A at the GP level — emerging as a distinct subcategory. Aqualis' focus suggests a bet that asset managers will increasingly use secondaries structures to compress timelines for building AUM or integrating bolt-on acquisitions, rather than waiting for traditional institutional commitments.

Whether this thesis scales depends on pricing. Platform growth deals typically require buyers to underwrite both the existing portfolio and the manager's forward execution risk — a dual valuation challenge that has kept transaction volume lower than pure continuation vehicles. If Aqualis can source deals where the platform's growth trajectory justifies the premium over static portfolio value, it carves out differentiation. If not, the fund competes on the same LP liquidity and asset repricing dynamics as every other secondaries vehicle.

Source: Secondaries Investor