Billionaire Tom Steyer Dodges Private-Credit Hype and Targets Niche Deals

The credit arm of Tom Steyer’s asset management firm is targeting a niche corner of private dealmaking that’s been on a different trajectory to the rest of the market.

Venture debt, whereby private credit gets channeled into startups, is bouncing back from the dent left by Silicon Valley Bank’s 2023 failure, when such lending fell by a fifth. By contrast, the wider market for private credit has soared through such events, morphing into a multitrillion-dollar behemoth that’s now a staple of retail investment portfolios.