Despite hitting several milestones in 2018, U.S. middle market trends in 2019 is not yet clear. It seems that the overall trend continues to favor larger deals which impacts both exit opportunities and valuations for PE funds in the middle market arena
In addition to being the first year in which annual middle-market deal value surpassed $400 billion, 2018 also marked the first time that deal value in the middle market reached $100 billion in a quarter—which happened four times last year, leading to an overall increase in deal value of 14.8% YoY. Deal count in 2018 also reached a decade high, rising 15.1% YoY.
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/8-charts-illustrating-the-us-pe-middle-market-in-2018
