Innovation & Alternative Markets
April 1, 2025
Over $250 Million Raised for a Fund in a Private Debt Niche
When a private debt platform launched a fund in an asset class almost none of our clients had heard of, we raised over $250 million for it, by teaching the market first.

Overview

When a private debt platform set out to launch its first litigation funding vehicle, it faced a challenge that had little to do with the quality of the strategy itself: almost no one in its target investor base had heard of the asset class. Blue Lakes partnered with the platform to change that. Building investor familiarity from the ground up and, over the course of the relationship, raising more than $250 million across the platform's suite of litigation funding offerings.

The Background

By the time the platform launched its litigation fund, we had already been working alongside the team for a year, helping raise capital for its other strategies in the private debt space. That established relationship gave us a deep understanding of the platform's approach, and the trust needed to introduce our clients to something genuinely new.

The platform seeded the litigation fund itself, and we stepped in to help find some of its very first investors. This was at the earliest possible stage: the fund had no track record yet, and the asset class remained largely unknown to our client base.

The Challenge: An Unfamiliar Asset Class

Litigation funding sits well outside the mainstream of most private wealth and institutional portfolios. For the majority of our clients, it was an asset class they had simply never encountered. Raising capital was therefore as much an education exercise as a placement one. Before anyone could seriously evaluate the opportunity, they first needed to understand what litigation funding is, how it generates returns, and what made this particular platform's strategy distinctive.

Our Approach

We built a sustained, hands-on education effort around the strategy, with the goal of familiarizing our clients with a niche opportunity most were seeing for the first time.

Working closely with the fund's manager, we organized numerous roadshows across Switzerland, the Middle East, and Asia to explain the strategy in person and give clients direct access to the team behind it. Alongside these, we produced a range of explanatory materials: written documents covering both the asset class and the specifics of this platform's litigation strategy, as well as dedicated video content, and we made ourselves available to answer every follow-up question clients raised along the way.

The aim throughout was simple: to turn an unfamiliar concept into an investment opportunity our clients could understand, assess, and commit to with confidence.

The Results

That groundwork paid off. Since the launch of the platform's flagship litigation fund, we have continued to partner closely with the team, supporting the marketing of every subsequent offering in the litigation funding space, including their close-ended funds and their second open-ended litigation fund.

In total, we successfully raised over $250 million for the platform's various litigation funding opportunities, out of the approximately $700 million they manage in the asset class. Today, the platform stands as one of the largest litigation funders operating in the UK market. A position built, in part, on the investor relationships we helped establish from the very beginning.

back projects
Insights
Insights from Niche Markets and Emerging Opportunities.
Private Credit & Fund Structuring
Structuring a Tailored Litigation Finance Vehicle
Blue Lakes structured a custom legal finance vehicle in partnership with a top-tier funder, delivering shorter durations, lower litigation risk, and high-return potential.
Read article
Innovation & Alternative Markets
Over $250 Million Raised for a Fund in a Private Debt Niche
When a private debt platform launched a fund in an asset class almost none of our clients had heard of, we raised over $250 million for it, by teaching the market first.
Read article
Private Credit & Fund Structuring
Helping the Launch of a $12 Billion Growth Equity Powerhouse
When two investors left London to launch their own fund, Blue Lakes helped turn it into one of Europe's largest growth equity names.
Read article
see all the projects