BlackRock expands into private markets with $400 billion fundraising goal, tokenization at the center

BlackRock announced a target of $400 billion in gross private markets fundraising by 2030, a number that signals a fundamental reorientation of the world’s largest asset manager toward alternatives, infrastructure, and blockchain-based tokenization.

The announcement was made on June 12, 2025.

The acquisition machine behind the pivot

BlackRock completed three major acquisitions to build the infrastructure for this push: Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) in 2024, HPS Investment Partners in 2025 for private credit and equity capabilities, and data provider Preqin, also in 2025.

Each deal serves a specific purpose. GIP gives BlackRock direct exposure to physical infrastructure assets. HPS adds deep private credit origination and equity deal flow. Preqin provides the data backbone that makes scaling these strategies possible.

BlackRock is distributing these strategies to wealth and retirement investors through what the firm calls “evergreen and semi-liquid structures.”

Tokenization as the bridge

BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized treasury fund, launched in 2024, had reached approximately $2 to $2.5 billion in assets under management by mid-2026 across multiple blockchain networks.

CEO Larry Fink has explicitly linked the growth of private markets to tokenization, targeting asset classes like real estate, credit, and infrastructure.

By the end of 2025, BlackRock was managing nearly $80 billion in digital asset exchange-traded products. The firm was also backing over $65 billion in stablecoin reserves.

The firm’s 2026 Private Markets Outlook describes a “new continuum” between public and private assets. BUIDL initially launched on Ethereum before expanding to additional chains.

Why this matters beyond BlackRock

BlackRock expects private markets and technology to contribute more than 20% of its long-term revenue. BlackRock is targeting insurers, wealth management channels, and retirement plans as the primary buyers for these products.

The risk worth flagging: BlackRock’s vision depends on regulators permitting retirement accounts and insurance portfolios to hold tokenized private assets at scale. BlackRock’s choice of blockchain networks for future product launches will influence where institutional liquidity concentrates, with meaningful implications for layer-1 token valuations.

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