Private equity in the 2010s
| History of private equity and venture capital | 
|---|
| Early history | 
| (origins of modern private equity) | 
| The 1980s | 
| (leveraged buyout boom) | 
| The 1990s | 
| (leveraged buyout and the venture capital bubble) | 
| The 2000s | 
| (dot-com bubble to the credit crunch) | 
| The 2010s | 
| (expansion) | 
| The 2020s | 
| (COVID-19 recession) | 
In the 2010s Private equity massively grew. As of 2019, there were nearly 7,000 private equity firms within the United States, nearly $2.5T globally in unspent cash (known as dry powder), and dealmaking in private equity accounted for 13% of global acquisitions.