Private credit has grown from a niche strategy to one of the largest asset classes in institutional finance, with global private credit AUM exceeding $1.5 trillion as of 2025. As the market has scaled, so has the pressure to differentiate. Direct lenders, business development companies, and credit opportunity funds are now competing for the same middle-market borrowers, and the edge that used to come from proprietary relationships is shrinking. Alternative data is filling the gap.
Google Search for "private credit" has risen 269% year-over-year as of March 2026, reaching approximately 24,000 w