What Hellman & Friedman does

Hellman & Friedman is a private equity investment firm founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, headquartered in San Francisco with regional offices in New York and London. The firm operates as a partner-owned partnership with no outside owners (excluding certain retirees) and maintains over $115 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2025, currently investing its eleventh fund with approximately $22 billion of committed capital. H&F pursues a single-strategy, concentrated large-cap private equity approach, holding approximately 30 portfolio companies across five core sectors: technology, healthcare, consumer services & retail, financial services, and information/content/business services, targeting majority or influential minority buyouts of market-leading businesses in developed markets.

The firm's revenue model is built on management fees on committed and invested capital from a global limited partner base (public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, corporate pensions, endowments, and foundations) plus carried interest on investment performance — notably without charging transaction or monitoring fees to portfolio companies, a differentiator since founding. Notable portfolio holdings include Medline (IPO'd December 2025 at $65B valuation), Verisure, HUB International, Zendesk, UKG, athenahealth, and Belron. In May 2026, H&F extended its platform beyond traditional private equity by co-founding a $1.5 billion AI-native enterprise services joint venture with Anthropic, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs, deploying Anthropic's Claude AI into mid-market companies via embedded forward-deployed engineers — a move supported by a Chief AI Officer function, a portfolio-wide ESG and cybersecurity operating framework, and an Operating Team including a CEO Council. The firm has over 180 employees, including 90+ investment professionals with an average H&F tenure of 18 years.

Name

Hellman & Friedman

Legal name

Hellman & Friedman LLC

Website

http://www.hf.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1984

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Hellman & Friedman is a partner-owned private equity firm founded in 1984 that invests large-cap capital in concentrated portfolios across five core sectors, managing over $115 billion in AUM through its eleventh fund, and recently extended into AI-native enterprise services via a $1.5 billion Anthropic-backed joint venture.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Private Equity Investment Management

NAICS

Portfolio Management and Investment Advice (523940)

SIC

Investment Advice (6282)

akta.pro primary industry

Alternative Investments for Private Wealth (Hedge Funds, PE/VC Access, Private Credit) (FSAAABAI)

Keywords

• Private equity investment
• Large-cap buyouts
• Fund management
• Portfolio company value creation
• Institutional asset management

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Others, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Private equity fund management fees and carried interest: H&F earns management fees on committed and invested capital from limited partners (public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, corporate pensions, endowments, foundations) plus carried interest on investment performance. The firm operates as a partnership with no outside owners (excluding certain retirees) and has raised over $70 billion of committed capital over its history. H&F does not charge transaction or monitoring fees to portfolio companies.
2. Capital gains from portfolio company exits: Realized gains from IPOs (Medline 2025 — $7.2 billion, largest PE-backed IPO ever; Verisure 2025 on Nasdaq Stockholm; Splunk 2024 acquired by Cisco) and secondary sales of portfolio company stakes (multiple Medline secondary offerings totaling over $4.5 billion across 2026).
3. Co-investment vehicle economics: H&F's assets under management include assets attributable to advisory clients and co-investment vehicles, reflecting the unrealized value of investments and remaining commitments.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Core offering

Hellman & Friedman is a private equity investment firm that raises commingled funds from institutional limited partners and invests the capital as control or influential minority buyouts in market-leading businesses across five sectors: Technology, Healthcare, Consumer Services & Retail, Financial Services, and Information, Content & Business Services. The firm currently invests its eleventh fund (~$22 billion committed capital) and supports a concentrated portfolio of approximately 30 companies through long-term partnership with management teams. In May 2026, H&F co-founded a $1.5 billion AI-native enterprise services joint venture with Anthropic, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs to deploy Claude-based AI into mid-sized companies' core operations.

Product overview

Hellman & Friedman is a private equity firm, not a software vendor, and its product offering is structured as an investment services platform rather than a SaaS-style modular product suite. The core offering (Hellman & Friedman Private Equity Investment Services) is a large-scale private equity investment service targeting approximately 30 concentrated portfolio investments in five core sectors: Technology, Healthcare, Consumer Services & Retail, Financial Services, and Information, Content & Business Services. Building on this investment platform, H&F co-founded a distinct AI-native enterprise services firm (jointly with Anthropic, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs) — a standalone product/platform that embeds Anthropic Claude-based forward-deployed engineers into mid-sized enterprise clients, and which acquired Fractional AI to serve as its operational centerpiece. The new firm is positioned alongside — not within — H&F's core investment offering. H&F's portfolio companies themselves (Hyve, Safe-Guard, Medline, Vantage, etc.) are independently operated businesses, not H&F products, and the firm exercises influence through board representation and capital allocation rather than product ownership.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group): Joint brand formed by H&F in 2020 by merging portfolio companies Ultimate Software and Kronos; a leading global provider of HCM, payroll, HR service delivery and workforce management solutions.
• Circana
• Claritev Corporation
• Edelman Financial Engines
• Belron

Products and services

• Hellman & Friedman Private Equity Investment Services The core private equity investment offering of Hellman & Friedman: large-scale control and influential minority buyout investments in high-quality, growing businesses across five core sectors (Technology, Healthcare, Consumer Services & Retail, Financial Services, and Information, Content & Business Services), delivered through commingled funds raised from institutional limited partners. The current eleventh fund (~$22 billion of committed capital) supports a concentrated portfolio of approximately 30 companies, with over $115 billion in total assets under management as of December 31, 2025.
• AI-Native Enterprise Services Firm (Anthropic / Blackstone / H&F / Goldman Sachs Joint Venture) A standalone AI-native enterprise services firm that works with mid-sized companies to deploy Anthropic's Claude large language models into their core business operations, with forward-deployed engineers embedded alongside Anthropic's research and product teams. Backed by approximately $1.5 billion in committed capital from Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman (each ~$300M), and Goldman Sachs (~$150M), with additional backing from General Atlantic, Leonard Green, Apollo Global Management, GIC, and Sequoia Capital. Targets healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail, real estate, and infrastructure clients.

Quantifiable outcome

• $7.2 billion IPO — largest PE-backed IPO of all time (Medline, 2025)
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers24 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability10 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and minor.

• Fractional AIflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 21 May 2026Acquired by the AI-native enterprise services firm backed by Anthropic, Blackstone, H&F, and others; Fractional AI's team and delivery capabilities serve as the founding operational centerpiece. Founded in 2024 by Chris Taylor, Eddie Siegel, and Travis May. Will work with Anthropic's Applied AI organization from day one.
• OpenAIflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 21 May 2026Rival AI lab that also formed a joint venture ("The Deployment Company") with PE firms including TPG, Brookfield, Bain Capital, and SoftBank; offers a 17.5% guaranteed annual return. Competed with H&F/Anthropic venture in enterprise AI deployment space.
• AccentureminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 5 May 2026Existing systems integrator in Anthropic's Claude Partner Network, alongside the new AI-native enterprise services firm. Anthropic's delivery model extends through Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC as core enterprise delivery partners.
• AnthropicflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 May 2026$1.5 billion AI-native enterprise services joint venture with Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman (with Goldman Sachs as founding investor) to deploy Anthropic's Claude AI model into mid-sized companies' core operations. Anthropic engineering resources embedded directly in the team. Acquired Fractional AI in May 2026 as operational centerpiece. Targets healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail, real estate, and infrastructure sectors. H&F's CEO Patrick Healy described the partnership as offering massive market need with unmatched AI technical capability.
• BlackstoneflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 May 2026Co-founding partner of the $1.5 billion Anthropic AI-native enterprise services joint venture. Each anchor investor (Anthropic, Blackstone, H&F) committed approximately $300 million; Goldman Sachs committed ~$150 million. Also co-invested with H&F in Medline (acquired 2021, IPO'd 2025 at $65B valuation), Genesys, and other portfolio companies. H&F and Blackstone share majority stake in Medline alongside Carlyle.
• CVC Capital PartnersminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 18 February 2026Co-shareholder with H&F in Mehiläinen (largest healthcare and social care provider in Finland). CVC and H&F jointly agreed the acquisitions of Regina Maria and MediGroup by Mehiläinen in 2025.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves12 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Blackstone: Largest global alternative asset manager and H&F's most frequent large-cap co-investor (joint ownership of Medline, AI services JV, other positions). Both target concentrated, control-oriented large-cap buyouts in technology, healthcare, financial services, and consumer/retail with globally branded LP relationships.
• KKR & Co. Global mega-cap private equity firm with comparable large-cap buyout strategy, sector coverage in technology/healthcare/financial services/consumer, and similar LP base. Competes head-to-head with H&F for control investments of $1B+ equity checks and shares the large-cap sponsor talent and brand profile.
• The Carlyle Group: Co-owner of Medline with H&F and Blackstone, and co-investor in Vantage Group and other assets. Carlyle operates a parallel large-cap private equity platform with overlapping sector mandates (technology, healthcare, financial services) and competes for the same deals and LPs as H&F.
• Apollo Global Management: Mega-cap alternative asset manager with significant private equity activity alongside credit and insurance. Backing member of H&F's AI services JV and a frequent competitor/co-investor in large-cap buyouts and take-privates across H&F's core sectors.
• Bain Capital: Global private equity firm with overlapping sector coverage in technology, healthcare, financial services, and consumer/retail. Multiple H&F partners (Tarim Wasim, Benjamin Farkas, Sean O'Brien) previously worked at Bain Capital, and the two firms compete directly for similar large-cap opportunities and LP capital.
• TPG: Large-cap private equity firm with comparable sector focus on technology, healthcare, financial services, and consumer. TPG co-founded a competing OpenAI deployment JV ('The Deployment Company') that directly competes with H&F's Anthropic AI services firm.
• CVC Capital Partners: Major European-headquartered private equity firm that co-owns Mehiläinen with H&F and competes across healthcare, financial services, and consumer in Europe and globally. Comparable large-cap, control-oriented investment approach with strong LP relationships.
• Warburg Pincus: Global private equity firm with comparable focus on healthcare, technology, financial services, and consumer/retail. Johannes Korp at H&F previously worked at Warburg Pincus, reflecting overlapping investor profiles and deal pipelines.
• Leonard Green & Partners: US-focused large-cap private equity firm co-investing with H&F in HUB International and as a backing member of the Anthropic AI services JV. Similar sector emphasis on consumer/retail, healthcare, and business services with comparable deal sizes and LP relationships.

Broad incumbents

• Advent International: Large global private equity firm with diversified sector mandates including healthcare, technology, financial services, and consumer/retail. Comparable in scale and approach but operates across a broader portfolio of investments rather than H&F's concentrated ~30-company model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/28202

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles20 records

Subsidiaries34 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A49 records

Investments27 records

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Frequently asked questions about Hellman & Friedman