The Ownership Atlas: who actually owns the mid-market

Capital is supposed to flow to opportunity. Map who actually owns the mid-market, country by country, and you find something closer to habit: private equity clusters where private equity already is, venture concentrates in three postcodes, and the deepest family-ownership pools sit exactly where institutional buyers are thinnest. This atlas maps ownership across every market with at least 5,000 companies in our dataset.

Private equity: a Franco-British sport

The most PE-penetrated large market in our data is Sweden at 7.2% — followed by Colorado, US (7.1%) and Tennessee, US (6.6%). The US average sits at 4.8%, Europe at 4.0%. Germany — the continent's second-largest mid-market — ranks far down the table: the Mittelstand still sells to strategic buyers and successors, not sponsors.

Venture capital: one state to rule them all

3,847 of the 16,457 VC-backed mid-market companies we track — 23.4% — sit in California alone. No other ownership class is this geographically concentrated. If your thesis requires VC-backed targets outside the coasts, the universe is thinner than most models assume.

Family ownership: the inverse map

Flip the lens to family ownership and the atlas inverts. The most family-owned large markets are Austria (23.7%), Germany (22.2%) and Italy (22.1%) — southern and central Europe dominate, precisely the region with the continent's lowest PE penetration. The white space on one map is the dense ink on the other.

How to use the atlas

• Funds: penetration is a proxy for competition. A point of difference in PE share between two similar markets is the difference between auction dynamics and proprietary conversations.
• Vendors: PE-backed companies buy differently (fast, centralised, KPI-driven) than family firms (slow, relational, generational). The ownership field on every record tells you which sales motion to run before the first call.
• Analysts: ownership mix is a leading indicator of M&A volume. Markets with high family share + rising PE penetration are where the deal flow goes next.