New Mountain Capital (NMFC) just wrapped up fundraising for its second non-control private equity fund, and it turns out investors were pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. The firm announced Friday that New Mountain Strategic Equity Fund II (SEF II) closed with $1.2 billion in commitments—20% above its original $1 billion hard cap.

So what's the strategy here? SEF II is designed for partnership-oriented minority investments, which is fancy private equity speak for "we take stakes in companies but don't run the show." The fund is doubling down on what New Mountain calls defensive growth industries—sectors that tend to hold up regardless of economic conditions.

The target list includes infrastructure services, life sciences and advanced materials, healthcare technologies, advanced data and analytics, software, financial and insurance services, and technology-enabled business services. That's a pretty broad mandate, but the common thread is non-cyclical growth potential.

"New Mountain has had a consistent focus on its deep research and underwriting approach to defensive growth industry sectors and has continued to grow its broader team to support business building and value creation, which are core tenets of our strategy in both control and non-control settings," said Adam Weinstein, managing director, president and chief operating officer.

The investor roster reads like a who's who of institutional money: pensions, insurance companies, asset managers, endowments, family offices, RIAs, and high-net-worth individuals all piled in. General partner commitments exceeded $150 million, which signals serious skin-in-the-game from New Mountain's own team.

The fund hasn't been sitting idle either. Before the final close, SEF II already deployed capital into Wipfli LLP, an accounting, tax, and advisory services provider. New Mountain seems to like the accounting space—it previously backed Citrin Cooperman Advisors and Grant Thornton LLP through its sixth and seventh traditional private equity funds.

For context, the predecessor fund (SEF I) closed back in 2020 with roughly $640 million in commitments. Nearly doubling that amount this time around suggests the non-control strategy is resonating with investors.

New Mountain manages approximately $60 billion in assets across private equity, strategic equity, credit, and net lease real estate funds, with a team of over 300 professionals. Simpson Thacher and Bartlett served as legal advisor for the fund.