Morningstar Launches PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, Bridging Public and Private Equity Exposure

Morningstar, Inc. has introduced the Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, a benchmark that bridges public and private equity exposure in a single index. The index combines the largest US-listed companies with significant late-stage venture-backed private companies, providing a unified framework to benchmark performance and serve as the basis for investable products. The Modern Market 100 allocates 90% to public companies and 10% to private firms, ensuring it mirrors the structure of the modern equity landscape.

Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN) has introduced the Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, a pioneering benchmark that integrates public and private equity exposure in a single index. This new index aims to provide a unified framework for benchmarking performance and serves as the foundation for investable products.

The Modern Market 100 Index combines the largest US-listed companies with significant late-stage venture-backed private companies, offering a comprehensive view of the modern equity landscape. According to Morningstar experts, the growth of private capital markets and the increasing capitalization of private companies while they remain private longer necessitate a more inclusive benchmarking tool. Traditional benchmarks often miss out on the full investor opportunity set, particularly in technology-driven areas such as AI, biotech, and fintech Introducing the Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 ...^[1].

The Modern Market 100 Index measures the performance of 100 of the largest US companies, including 90 publicly listed firms and 10 VC-backed leaders such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe. To accurately represent the relative size of the public and private equity markets, the index allocates 90% to public companies and 10% to private firms. This structure ensures that the index mirrors the actual composition of the modern equity landscape.

Designed for investability, the Modern Market 100 Index applies transparent pricing, liquidity screens, and quarterly rebalances. It calculates daily, with prices for VC-backed companies based on verified secondary market transactions, while public company prices are sourced from official exchange closes.

This latest addition to Morningstar’s suite of indexes leverages PitchBook’s leading private market data and insights to help investors better understand and access private markets. The effort underscores Morningstar’s commitment to developing companion indexes that provide investors with more accurate tools, deeper insights, and better ways to navigate an evolving market landscape.

Ron Bundy, President of Morningstar Indexes, stated, "As private investments make their way into more investor portfolios, investors need better data and relevant benchmarks to capture the modern opportunity set. Our new index empowers investors with a unified framework that reflects both public and private market leaders, so investors can evaluate public and private investments on the same level playing field."

Joanna McGinley, EVP, Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives, PitchBook, added, "PitchBook is uniquely positioned to help build this index because of the depth of our private market data and the research expertise we’ve developed over nearly two decades. Modern Market 100 brings together our proprietary insights into venture-backed companies with the transparency of public markets, offering investors an investable view of how today’s most important companies perform across the private-to-public lifecycle. We believe this index not only provides a valuable benchmarking tool but also advances the industry by helping investors better understand and navigate the convergence of private and public markets."

The Modern Market 100 Index is available through Morningstar’s platform and is designed to support investors across various asset classes and strategies. For more information, visit indexes.morningstar.com.