What is Evergreen Fund?
An evergreen fund is a private markets vehicle with no fixed end date: it continuously accepts new capital, recycles proceeds into new investments, and offers investors periodic (usually quarterly, capped) liquidity instead of waiting for a 10-year fund term.
Unlike a traditional closed-end drawdown fund — raised once, invested over 3-5 years, and wound down by year 10-12 — an evergreen fund operates perpetually. Investors buy in at NAV, exit through periodic redemption windows (typically quarterly, with gates limiting redemptions to a few percent of NAV per quarter), and the fund reinvests exit proceeds rather than distributing them.
Evergreen structures power the "democratization" of private markets: semi-liquid vehicles aimed at private wealth channels and smaller institutions that cannot manage capital calls and 10-year illiquidity. Their trade-offs are equally structural — cash drag from holding liquidity for redemptions, NAV-based entry pricing that depends on valuation marks, and gates that suspend liquidity exactly when investors most want out.
Also known as: open-end fund, perpetual fund, semi-liquid fund