An overview of Spain's private equity and venture capital ecosystem based on the SpainCap data framework: investment volume, transactions by segment, active sectors and the family office as an alternative to conventional PE.
Spain’s private equity ecosystem has matured significantly over the past decade. From being a market where international operators viewed Madrid as a peripheral destination, Spain has become a relevant investment target in Europe — with robust local infrastructure, first-tier domestic managers and fundraising activity that attracts institutional capital from around the world.
This report provides an overview of the market using SpainCap’s (formerly ASCRI’s) data framework, supplemented by our own analysis and sector context. It is aimed at business owners who want to understand the ecosystem’s key players, and at international investors evaluating Spain as an investment destination.
Spain’s private equity and venture capital market deploys, in a normal year, between €6.5 billion and €8 billion in investment, distributed across hundreds of transactions of very different sizes and characters. In 2024, the market estimate was approximately €7.5 billion, consolidating the post-pandemic recovery and confirming Spain as the fourth-largest PE/VC market in the eurozone, behind France, Germany and the Netherlands.
In terms of portfolio companies, SpainCap typically records 600–750 investments annually — covering both new entries and follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies. The large majority of transactions by number belong to the venture capital segment (startups and high-growth companies at early and mid-stages); buyout and growth capital account for fewer transactions but significantly larger individual deal sizes.
The buyout segment — acquisition of mature businesses, frequently with leverage — generates the largest monetary volume in the Spanish market. Buyouts in the Spanish middle-market (€5M–€200M EV) form the core of the domestic market.
The principal players in Spanish buyout include both domestic funds (Miura Private Equity, Portobello Capital, MCH Private Equity, Magnum Capital, Nazca) and Spanish divisions of European funds (PAI Partners, Equistone, IK Partners, Qualitas Equity). Average ticket sizes in the middle-market segment range from €15M to €80M in equity.
By sector, Spanish buyout has shown particular activity in business services, health and wellness, specialised distribution, applied technology (vertical software) and industrial components manufacturing.
Growth capital — investment in already-profitable businesses to finance expansion, without necessarily taking control — is a smaller segment by volume but relevant for mid-sized family companies seeking capital to scale without wanting to sell control.
This is the segment where operators like Blue Mountain are most active: businesses with €3M–€15M of EBITDA seeking patient capital for a step-change in scale, not aggressive capital seeking control and exit within five years.
Venture capital is the most active segment by transaction count and receives the most media attention. Spain’s VC ecosystem has several reference players (Kibo Ventures, Seaya, Inveready, K Fund, Samaipata) and has produced unicorns including Cabify, Glovo, Travelperk and Wallbox.
However, venture capital is not private equity in the strict sense relevant to the traditional business owner: its target companies are technology startups with hypergrowth models, not industrial or service businesses with consolidated EBITDA.
A notable characteristic of the Spanish market is the strong presence of international capital. SpainCap estimates that 50–60% of capital deployed in Spanish buyouts and growth equity comes from managers and funds headquartered outside Spain, primarily from the UK, France, Germany and the US.
This internationalisation has implications for the seller: the buyer of your business may well be a fund headquartered in London or Munich managing capital from Scandinavian pension funds. The price may be competitive and the process professional, but the post-acquisition management culture will differ from domestic capital.
Domestic capital — family offices, Spanish PE managers, first-tier investors with deep local market knowledge — tends to be more selective in deal count but more flexible on structure and timelines.
Based on observed deal flow, the sectors with the highest transactional activity in Spain in 2024-2025 are:
Healthcare and health services. Sector consolidation remains intense: dental clinics, diagnostic centres, care homes for the elderly, mental health services. Multiples are high (8–14x EBITDA) and buyer competition is strong.
Technology and vertical software. Especially sector-specific management software (real estate, logistics, industrial, healthcare). SaaS businesses with recurring ARR trade at multiples well above the broader technology sector.
Business services. Engineering firms, technical consultancies, industrial maintenance services, facility services. Predictable businesses with long-term contracts generating stable cash flows.
Specialised distribution. Distributors with dominant positions in specific niches (specialist construction materials, technical components, temperature-controlled logistics). The model is hard to replicate and creates meaningful barriers to entry.
Food and beverage. Brands with international distribution or differentiated market position. Trend towards healthy, premium and clean-label products.
Education. Private schools, scaled language academies, vocational and corporate training. The sector consolidated heavily between 2018 and 2022 and continues to attract capital.
Selective fundraising. The higher interest rate environment of 2022–2024 made fundraising harder for PE funds and compressed exit multiples, particularly in leveraged buyouts. In 2025–2026, with rates gradually declining, fundraising has improved but remains more selective than the 2018–2021 period.
Platform consolidation. The buy-and-build strategy — acquiring a reference company in a sector and using it as a platform for multiple additional acquisitions — remains dominant in Spanish PE. This has driven significant consolidation in sectors including healthcare, business services and distribution.
ESG as investment criterion. The institutional investors backing PE funds (pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds) increasingly require ESG criteria in investments. This means companies with significant environmental or labour risks are less attractive to funds that need to raise institutional capital.
Family offices as an alternative to conventional PE. Faced with shorter buyout cycles and compressed multiples, a growing number of family-owned businesses prefer private capital structures without a fund: family offices investing their own capital with long-term horizons and no exit pressure.
Blue Mountain is not a conventional private equity fund. We do not manage third-party capital, we have no maturity date and we are not under pressure to exit within a fixed timeframe.
We are an investing family office that deploys proprietary capital into acquisitions of Spanish businesses with revenue between €3M and €50M. Our investment horizon is long-term — we can hold a stake indefinitely if the business continues to create value — and our operating model is that of an active partner who brings resources, not a manager optimising for exit.
This positioning places us in the space between conventional PE and family capital: more professional than pure family capital, more flexible and committed than short-cycle PE.
For the Spanish business owner evaluating capital or sale options, understanding who is on the other side of the table — a fund with a maturity date, a family office, a strategic competitor — is as important as the price offered. For guidance on selling your company or understanding how much it is worth, we have dedicated resources.
If you would like to explore whether there is a fit between your business and our investor profile, we invite you to get in touch.
See also: Patient capital: the alternative to conventional private equity and Spain’s middle-market: figures that matter.
By Blue Mountain Capital
By Blue Mountain Capital
By Blue Mountain Capital
If you wish to explore a potential collaboration or present an investment opportunity, we invite you to contact us. We guarantee absolute confidentiality in all our conversations.