About this map
Private equity now owns a great deal of ordinary life — the vet, the dentist, the gym, the sandwich shop — and almost none of it is legible from the outside. This is an attempt to make one slice of it visible.
How to read it
Depth is time. The mouth of the tunnel is the present; flying forward flies into history. Each company sits at the depth of the month it was acquired, in the wedge belonging to its industry, sized by what was paid for it. A thread runs from each company forward to the moment it was sold, or to the mouth if it is still held — so a firm’s portfolio reads as a set of parallel lines running toward you.
Drag vertically to travel through time, horizontally to turn the wheel, and pinch to move faster. Tap a company to read its record. The search bar is the fastest way anywhere: type a firm, a company, a year, or a colloquial group like “fast food”.
What is in it
40 firms and 175 companies across the United States and Canada, 1989 to 2025, of which 96 are still held. Every record has a date and a source. It is a seed, not a census — the methodology page sets out exactly what that means and where the gaps are.