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Private Market Consulting

Actionable insights from private market experts.

Bella Private Markets acts as your trusted partner in financial consulting, analytics, and comprehensive market research. We focus exclusively on providing solutions to the challenges facing the private capital industry. Bella's Research platform focuses on customized projects, ranging from empirical research to strategic advisory services. For information about our quantitative software tools, please see our Bella Analytics platform at bella-analytics.com.

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Precision Tools for Allocator Success

Examples of how we help

About Bella

At Bella Private Markets, we strive to empower our clients with informed insights in financial analysis and capital allocation. Our vision is centered on fostering a deeper understanding of market dynamics while providing tailored solutions that align with your specific goals.

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Services

Strategic consulting, rigorous analysis, and actionable insights tailored to asset owners, private capital managers, and other private market participants.

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Sectors

We advise asset owners, private capital managers, and other market participants with strategies built for their unique mandates and market realities.

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What can we help you with?

Consulting & Advisory

Bella offers tailored guidance on fund structuring, governance, and organizational diagnostics grounded in academic frameworks and informed by real-world experience for venture capital, private equity, sovereigns, pensions, and family offices, among others.

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Simulation & Benchmarking

Bella provides proprietary simulation tools and benchmarking frameworks that enable investors to model liquidity, pacing, and return scenarios; test allocation decisions; and assess performance using purpose-built models for illiquid private market portfolios.

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Research

Bella conducts rigorous custom research and strategic analysis on private market dynamics, investment structures, governance frameworks, and more to provide expert insights in thought leadership, legal, and regulatory contexts.

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Impact Analysis

Bella undertakes impact analyses grounded in empirical methods to evaluate the social and economic outcomes of institutional capital deployment, aiming to quantify non-financial outcomes alongside traditional financial return metrics.

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Policy Assessment

Bella assesses the effectiveness of investment-related policies using research-backed frameworks rooted in private market expertise.

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Training & Workshops

Bella delivers interactive workshops and targeted executive training for leadership teams focused on fund strategy, governance, modeling, portfolio pacing, and organizational decision-making in private capital markets.

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Why Choose Bella?

Led by globally recognized private capital experts, Bella is trusted by the senior management of sovereign funds, global asset managers, and other institutional investors around the world. We approach every engagement with nuance, rigor, and strategic insight to help you meet institutional objectives while positioning you for long-term success.

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The Bella Advantage

Tailored Solutions

Our services are customized to address your specific challenges, enabling you to implement effective strategies that lead to long-term success in private capital markets.

Expert Insights

We provide detailed analytics and insights grounded in practical experience to help you navigate private market dynamics. Our solutions fuel growth, innovation, and long-term success in an ever-changing industry.

Trusted Partners

Our academic pedigree and history of working with leaders across the private capital industry uniquely position us to help you refine strategies, improve operations, and implement best practices to build and maintain a competitive advantage.

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Private Market
Consulting

Performance assessment & predictive analytics for private markets.

Bella Private Markets is a consulting and advisory firm focused exclusively on providing solutions to the challenges facing the private capital industry. Led by Dr. Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, Bella works closely with the senior management of – among others – private equity groups, venture capital firms, and institutional investors on complex, customized projects. Our approach combines a rigorous academic perspective with real world industry expertise to provide our clients with actionable insights to improve performance and optimize operations.

Delivering Results Around the Globe

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Client Countries

Bella’s global reach spans 30+ countries and 6 continents

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Clients Served

Bella has helped new and established groups alike from across the private market spectrum

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Combined Client AUM

Bella’s clients range from first-time funds to multi-trillion-dollar financial institutions

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Years Active

Bella has built longstanding relationships with private capital leaders over its decade-plus of advising the industry

Past Work

See our Expertise in Action

In partnership with the Knight Foundation, we produced a series of groundbreaking reports that quantified the representation and performance of diverse managers in the U.S. asset management industry. Cited in countless media reports and other academic articles, this body of work provided the first ever comprehensive benchmark for diversity in the U.S. asset management industry. Read more here.
Knight Foundation Representation Study
Since 2020, we have worked with the Association of Asian American Investment Managers on a series of research initiatives aimed at quantifying the representation and performance of AAPI managers in the U.S. asset management industry. The reports’ findings have been published in numerous outlets, and the most recent can be found here.
AAAIM Manager Performance Studies
We closely mapped the evolution of VC investment activity in low-earth orbit, with a special focus on interactions involving the International Space Station. Based on extensive research and interviews, the final report described historical activity and recent changes, noting the activity of privately funded work in nano- and micro-satellites, non-government launch vehicles, and launch concierge services. The final report is included in a NASA publication.
NASA-Published Economic Development Report
We worked with Victoria, Australia’s startup agency, LaunchVic, to structure a public-private investment fund to encourage the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on extensive on-the-ground and secondary research, our recommendations balanced the program's need for financial sustainability with the goal of activating significant risk capital for early-stage ventures. Read more here.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development
We worked with a government agency tasked with improving the innovation ecosystem within the nation by improving the pipeline of entrepreneurial businesses and attracting both domestic and foreign capital to fund these initiatives. Backed by academic insights and custom research, we prepared a detailed series of policy recommendations for structuring various public/private initiatives to catalyze innovation and mobilize private capital.
National Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Capital Mobilization
We have worked with a number of entrepreneurs to assist in valuing their businesses using a mix of market- and cash flow-based methods; considering financing options from different types of capital providers; providing guidance throughout the deal structuring process; and supporting entrepreneurs as they grow their businesses against the backdrop of increasingly complex private capital markets.
Business Valuation for Entrepreneurs
We worked with a government-funded financial education authority to develop and host a multi-day, in-person educational conference for senior policymakers and investors active in private markets. Topics included an overview of the current private capital landscape, best practices in manager and deal evaluation, exit routes and liquidity mechanisms, and the potential impacts of recent innovations in private markets.
Multi-Day Private Markets Conference
We evaluated the performance of a development finance institution's investments in pre-frontier market VC funds and offered specific recommendations on how to enhance the program moving forward. We conducted over 80 interviews of fund managers, portfolio company managers, government officials, bankers, and other subject matter experts to supplement the sparse data and provide a detailed snapshot of the impact of each fund.
DFI Investment Performance
Conducted an in-depth strategic review, performance assessment, and attribution analysis of a leading European private equity investor and wrote a Harvard Business School case study on the group.
Strategic Investor Review
Evaluated market demand against a top PE group’s core competencies to identify new investment product opportunities that leveraged the group’s strengths in long-term value creation and infrastructure-like investing.
Market Evaluation – New PE Product
We assessed the portfolio company-level impact of ownership by a large U.S. PE firm by quantifying changes in employment, wages, workplace safety, and innovation using custom-built measurement frameworks informed by academic best practices. The results of these analyses were presented by the firm to investors in several of its annual group meetings.
PE Impact Assessment
We customized a version of our historical simulation software for use by a leading U.S.-based funds-of-funds group. The custom deployment took advantage of the fund-of-fund’s own proprietary data, and allowed the group to produce custom reports for its clients that show expected drawdowns, distributions, and performance evolution over various horizons.
Tailored Portfolio Analytics
In a longstanding partnership, we continue work with one of the world’s largest asset managers to produce a variety of thought leadership materials on a recurring basis. From quarterly essays and webinars to custom research prepared for the group’s clients, we have produced novel insights on topics including innovative liquidity mechanisms, private market portfolio construction, new strategies emerging in private markets, and more over the past 10+ years.
Ongoing Research & Collaboration
In partnership with the Coller Research Institute and Bladonmore, we have served as editors and academic advisors for the recurring Private Equity Findings publication—now Private Capital Findings, in its 21st edition—which brings together insights from academics and practitioners alike on a number of contemporary topics in private equity. View the latest issue here.
Editorial Partnership with Coller Research Institute
We quantified the risk of a series of multi-billion dollar, multi-tranche securitized private equity offering issued by Azalea, an affiliate of Temasek, using a custom-built Monte Carlo-style simulation analysis. The results of this independent risk analysis were incorporated into the offering prospectuses to help educate potential investors. More about the series of offerings can be found here.
Independent Risk Assessment
We reviewed and guided the implementation of a private market portfolio forecasting and reporting framework for one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. We worked directly with senior personnel to improve modeling inputs, assumptions, and outputs. We also implemented a version of our simulation-based cash flow forecasting approach.
Forecasting & Reporting Implementation
We produced a comprehensive, in-depth report outlining key concepts and best practices for investing in private markets for a large Middle Eastern family office. We paired the results of this report with a series of educational workshops and performance benchmarking assessments of the family office’s existing investments to provide a roadmap for building the family office’s investing capabilities, based on their track record to-date.
Family Office Investment Framework
On an annual basis, we organize an educational conference at the Harvard Faculty Club in Boston for a large South American bank’s private wealth clients. The conference features a variety of lectures, case studies, and interactive sessions led by leading business school professors that cover a wide range of contemporary private market topics.
Annual Private Markets Conference
Drawing on industry insights and outputs from our novel historical simulation model, we work with a government-affiliated banking group in North America working to build its private equity investing program. We prepare comprehensive analytical reports on a quarterly basis for the group’s investment committee that highlight market developments and expected liquidity and performance for the group’s complex, multi-asset portfolio to help inform future allocations.
Customized Liquidity & Performance Forecasting
We provided comprehensive performance tracking and benchmarking for a major emerging markets PE fund on a quarterly basis, comparing overall and fund-by-fund performance against relevant public and private market benchmarks. We also evaluated the sources of value creation within the firm through a detailed attribution analysis that assessed the proportion of returns created through market selection, use of leverage, and portfolio company outperformance.
Portfolio Performance Benchmarking

Featured Insights

Dive into our collection of published reports, discussions with industry experts, and timely research to gain a deeper understanding of the forces shaping private markets

Josh Lerner Featured on CAIA’s Educational Alpha Podcast

Joining CAIA Association CEO Bill Kelly, Josh Lerner kicked off season two of CAIA’s Educational Alpha podcast. Covering private equity topics from commitment strategies to...

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Private Debt: Seeking Alpha in the Lower Middle Market

In this new whitepaper, commissioned by Heard Capital, Bella Private Markets investigates trends and opportunities in the lower middle market (LMM) of the private debt...

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AAPI-Owned Firms’ Access to Emerging Manager Programs

Continuing our collaboration with the Association of Asian American Investment Managers (AAAIM) on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation in private markets, a new...

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Private Equity Findings Issue 20

Bella Private Markets collaborated with the Coller Research Institute to produce the milestone twentieth issue of Private Equity Findings, a publication that curates the most...

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Webinar: AAPI Representation in Asset Management

In collaboration with the Association of Asian American Investment Managers (AAAIM), Bella COO Alex Billias presented research findings alongside Mark Okada, Co-Founder and CEO of...

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Understanding Performance Benchmarking

One of the most vexing questions in private equity is the assessment of investment returns. To extract a meaningful answer regarding its performance, a private...

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Webinar: Cash Flow Forecasting and Predictive Analytics in Illiquid Markets

Following the publication of “Takahashi–Alexander Revisited: Modeling Private Equity Portfolio Outcomes Using Historical Simulations” in The Journal of Portfolio Management, CFA Society Boston hosted a...

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AAPI Representation in Asset Management

The Association of Asian American Investment Managers (AAAIM) and Bella Private Markets recently collaborated on a new study exploring the representation of Asian Americans and...

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Introducing a New Model For Forecasting PE Portfolio Outcomes

Included in the July 2023 issue of The Journal of Portfolio Management, our paper “Takahashi–Alexander Revisited: Modeling Private Equity Portfolio Outcomes Using Historical Simulations” introduces...

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Bella Analytics

One of the most difficult issues fund managers and investors alike face in managing their private capital investment portfolios is estimating future returns. The reasons...

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Private Equity Findings Issue 19

Bella Private Markets collaborated with the Coller Research Institute to produce the nineteenth issue of Private Equity Findings, a publication that curates the most important...

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Knight Foundation Diversity Study

In a study funded by the Knight Foundation, we offer a comprehensive look at diverse ownership of asset management firms. In addition to quantifying the...

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Connect With Us

info@bella-pm.com

+1 (978)-498-4467

100 North Washington Street, Suite 503 Boston, MA 02114

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At Bella Private Markets, we are dedicated to providing world-class insights and analyses to help you navigate the complexities of the private market landscape. Our expert team is here to assist you through our consulting services, impactful research, and tailored training programs to help empower institutional decision-making.

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