DPI in Private Equity: Formula and 2026 Benchmarks

What DPI means in private equity

DPI in private equity stands for Distributions to Paid-In capital: cumulative cash a fund has distributed to its limited partners divided by the cumulative capital LPs have contributed. A DPI of 1.0 means LPs got back what they put in. Above 1.0 means cash returned exceeds cash called. DPI excludes unrealised NAV, so it tracks only money already in the LP's account.

Key takeaways

• DPI measures realised, in-the-pocket cash returned to LPs, not paper marks or unrealised NAV.
• Formula: cumulative distributions divided by cumulative paid-in capital, both net of fees and carry under the industry-standard convention.
• A good DPI is vintage-dependent. Most funds cross 1.0 between years six and nine. Top-quartile buyout funds typically land above 2.0 by year ten.
• DPI sits alongside TVPI, RVPI, IRR and MOIC in the LP scorecard. None of these substitutes for the others.
• In 2025 and 2026, DPI has become the dominant metric for LP commitment decisions because exit activity collapsed and many GPs are sitting on large unrealised marks they have not yet converted into cash.

DPI formula and how to calculate it

The DPI formula is straightforward:

DPI = Cumulative distributions to LPs / Cumulative paid-in capital

Both figures are cumulative since fund inception. "Paid-in capital" is the capital LPs have actually wired to the fund in response to capital calls, not their committed amount. A €500 million fund that has only called €300 million of commitments uses €300 million as the denominator. See the committed capital glossary entry for the contrast.

Under the standard reporting convention used by ILPA, Cambridge Associates and Preqin, both numerator and denominator are reported net of fund expenses: management fees, fund expenses and carried interest are subtracted before the ratio is computed. This is "net DPI" and it is what LPs benchmark against quartile data. A GP marketing deck that quotes "DPI" without the qualifier almost always means net DPI; if it is gross of fees the deck should say so explicitly.

A worked example

A 2015-vintage buyout fund has total LP commitments of €1.0 billion. By December 2024 it has called €900 million of those commitments and made €1.35 billion of distributions back to LPs. The residual NAV of the remaining unrealised investments is €450 million.

• DPI = €1,350M / €900M = 1.50
• RVPI = €450M / €900M = 0.50
• TVPI = (€1,350M + €450M) / €900M = 2.00

LPs have already received 1.50 times the cash they put in. They still hold a claim on €450 million of residual value, which would lift the multiple to 2.00 if it crystallised at NAV.

Net vs gross DPI

Gross DPI uses gross distributions before the GP's carried interest is paid, divided by gross drawdowns. Net DPI subtracts both. The gap between gross and net is typically 0.2 to 0.4 of multiple on a mature buyout fund with a 20 percent carry and 8 percent hurdle. Always confirm which figure a GP is quoting before comparing across managers.

DPI vs IRR, TVPI, RVPI, and MOIC

The comparison table above lays out the differences. The intuition is that each metric answers a different question.

• DPI answers: how much cash did I actually get back?
• RVPI answers: how much paper value is still in the portfolio?
• TVPI answers: what is the total return assuming residual NAV is real?
• IRR answers: what was the annualised return given the timing of cash flows?
• MOIC answers: what multiple did a specific deal or the gross portfolio achieve, before fund-level fees?

Two funds with identical TVPI can have very different DPI. Fund A has distributed 1.8 of capital and carries an RVPI of 0.2. Fund B has distributed 0.5 and carries an RVPI of 1.5. Both TVPI at 2.0. Fund A is nearly liquidated and the multiple is locked in. Fund B is still mostly unrealised and the 2.0 depends on the GP marking those positions accurately and exiting at or above NAV. LPs increasingly read DPI and RVPI side by side rather than collapsing them into TVPI.

DPI vs IRR

A fund that returns 1.5 of capital in two years has a much higher IRR than one that takes ten years to do the same. IRR rewards speed. DPI rewards size. The two can diverge sharply when a fund uses subscription lines to delay capital calls, inflating IRR while DPI builds slowly because paid-in capital is still modest in the early years.

DPI vs TVPI

TVPI is always greater than or equal to DPI because TVPI adds back the residual unrealised value. The gap (TVPI minus DPI) is RVPI. As a fund matures, distributions accumulate and the unrealised portfolio shrinks, so DPI rises while RVPI falls. A fund in wind-down should converge on DPI equal to TVPI as the last positions exit.

DPI vs MOIC

MOIC is typically a deal-level or gross-portfolio multiple: investment proceeds divided by invested capital. It does not include fund-level fees or carry. A 2.5 deal-level MOIC after carry, fees, and unrealised mark-down to exit value might translate into a net DPI nearer 1.7 or 1.8 at the fund level. Fund-level DPI is the metric that lands in the LP's wallet.

What is a good DPI in private equity?

There is no single number. A good DPI depends on vintage year, strategy, and fund age. A 2023-vintage buyout fund with a DPI of 0.05 in 2026 is normal; a 2012-vintage fund still sitting at 0.5 in 2026 is a problem.

Rough benchmarks for European buyout funds, based on long-run Preqin and Cambridge Associates quartile data:

These bands shift by strategy. Venture funds tend to have longer J-curves and bigger dispersion: top decile VC funds occasionally print DPI above 3.00, but the median rarely crosses 1.50. See the J-curve glossary entry for the shape of the early years. Infrastructure and private debt produce earlier distributions through yield, so a 4-year-old debt fund of vintage 2022 might already show a DPI above 0.30 simply from interest paid out.

When LPs benchmark a GP, they look at DPI versus the public market equivalent (PME) for the same vintage and at the same fund age. A 1.5 DPI in a vintage where the median is 2.0 is below average even though 1.5 sounds healthy in isolation.

Why DPI matters more in 2026

Through 2024 and 2025, distributions from buyout funds fell to the lowest level of the modern era as a share of NAV. MSCI's private capital monitor puts distributions at roughly 6 percent of buyout AUM in the year to June 2025, against a ten-year average of about 14 percent. McKinsey's Global Private Markets Report 2026 reaches the same conclusion: five-year rolling DPI for buyout funds is at its lowest recorded level.

That has changed how LPs read fund proposals. A 2024 LP survey covered by Private Equity International found DPI tied with MOIC as the second-most-cited metric in re-up decisions, behind only IRR. The mantra "DPI is the new IRR" appeared on conference T-shirts because it captured a real shift: with paper marks suspect and exit timing unpredictable, LPs increasingly want to see realised cash before committing fresh capital.

The consequence is a bifurcated market. GPs that delivered consistent distributions through the 2018 to 2022 vintages are still raising at or above target. GPs that built large NAVs but distributed little are facing extended fundraising timelines or cancelled funds outright. Several European fund managers tracked on GP Intel have shifted strategy in response: more partial exits, more dividend recaps, more use of continuation vehicles and secondaries to crystallise DPI for the original LPs while extending the hold for those who roll.

Continuation vehicles and DPI

A GP-led continuation vehicle (CV) lets a GP sell one or more portfolio assets out of an ageing fund into a new vehicle backed by secondaries buyers, with original LPs given the choice to cash out or roll. The cash option flows into the original fund's DPI. For 2014 to 2016 vintages, CVs have been one of the main mechanisms keeping DPI moving in the slowest exit market in over a decade. Specialist secondaries managers such as Ardian (€196 billion of AUM, the largest secondaries franchise globally by deal volume) and HarbourVest Partners are on the buy-side of many of these transactions, while diversified managers such as Eurazeo and Wendel have used balance-sheet capital and continuation structures to manage portfolio realisation timing.

LPs are split on whether CV-driven DPI is "real" DPI. The cash is real, but critics argue it amounts to a GP selling to itself with secondaries buyers providing the price discovery. ILPA guidance asks GPs to flag CV-driven distributions separately. Reading a fund's DPI without that flag can mask slower underlying exit performance.

How LPs use DPI in fund selection

For an LP's investment committee, DPI plays three roles in re-up and new manager decisions:

1. Hurdle on prior funds. Most institutional LPs require a prior fund to have crossed a minimum DPI (often 0.5 to 1.0, depending on vintage age) before they commit to a successor.
2. Cash recycling. DPI from existing commitments funds new commitments. Without DPI, LPs hit their PE allocation caps and have to slow or stop new commitments, which is exactly what the 2024 to 2025 fundraising data showed.
3. Track-record verification. Top-quartile IRR with low DPI is treated with more scepticism than top-quartile DPI with average IRR. The cash is the evidence.

The pattern shows up across the GP directory we maintain at GP Intel. Funds with realised exits get featured prominently on their fiches; funds that are still mostly unrealised tend to show empty exit timelines, which tells an LP something important before they read a single metric. The methodology behind these fiches is documented in our methodology page.

Limitations of DPI

DPI has weaknesses that LPs and analysts should account for:

• No time value. DPI treats a €1 distribution in year three the same as a €1 distribution in year ten. IRR or a public market equivalent (PME) calculation captures the time dimension.
• No unrealised upside. A young fund with strong unrealised positions will have low DPI and look weak on a DPI-only screen even if it is outperforming on TVPI.
• Vintage sensitivity. Comparing DPI of a 2018-vintage fund to a 2022-vintage fund without adjusting for age is meaningless.
• Re-investment assumption is absent. Unlike IRR, DPI does not assume re-investment of distributions at any rate. For an LP that recycles capital quickly, this understates compound returns.
• Continuation-vehicle distortion. A GP can manufacture DPI by selling assets into its own continuation vehicle, which is not always equivalent to a true third-party exit.

For a fuller picture, LPs read DPI alongside IRR, TVPI, RVPI, MOIC, and PME. The PE fund due diligence guide walks through the full metric stack and how to weight each in a manager review.

Disambiguation: DPI the metric vs DPI the firm

Some readers searching for "DPI private equity" are looking for the metric, which is what this guide covers. Others are looking for Development Partners International, the London-headquartered Africa-focused private equity firm that trades under the DPI acronym. DPI the firm manages over US$3 billion across three pan- African private equity funds and has backed companies in Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, and other African markets. The two are unrelated. This article is about the metric.

Bottom line

DPI in private equity is the cleanest read on whether a fund has actually returned capital to its investors. The formula is simple: cumulative cash distributed over cumulative cash called. The interpretation requires context: vintage year, strategy, fund age, and benchmark quartiles. In the current cycle, with distributions running at less than half their ten-year average, DPI has moved from one of several reporting metrics to the metric many LPs price commitments against. GPs without it are finding the fundraising window closed; GPs with it are pricing power. For a working view of which European PE managers are realising capital today, our GP directory lists funds, exits, and recent activity for over a thousand firms.