Private equity produces consistently strong returns compared with quoted equities, although it carries the highest risk of all alternative asset classes. Private equity can also create diversification within portfolios because it has a low performance correlation with traditional asset classes. These characteristics are encouraging growing numbers of private individuals to make private equity part of their investment strategy.

Hotbed offers its members the opportunity to invest in individual private equity transactions, typically in units of £25,000. By investing directly, investors retain control of their capital up to the point of investment and become shareholders in the unquoted company. Investors are also offered the opportunity to invest in private equity funds that would otherwise be inaccessible to them due to high mimimum investment thresholds or the institutional nature of the funds' investor base.