NASDAQ: STEP

•need for customized solutions as investors’ size, sophistication and allocations to private markets investments increased.

We set out to build a firm that would be tailored to meet this new market environment, and differentiated from the fund-of-funds and adviser-only models in existence at the time. We have focused on an integrated, full- service approach to private markets solutions with research depth as our core pillar of strength.

We believe our success and growth since our founding has been driven by our continued focus on providing a high level of service, tailored to our clients’ evolving needs, through:

•Our focus on customization. By leveraging our expertise across the private markets asset classes, investment strategies and commercial structures, we help our clients build customized portfolios that are designed to meet their specific objectives in a cost effective way.

•Our global-and-local approach. With offices in 31 cities across 19 countries on five continents, we have built a global operating platform, organically and via acquisition, with strong local teams that possess valuable regional insights and deep-rooted relationships. This allows us to combine the advantages of having a knowledgeable on-the-ground presence with the benefits of operating as a global organization.

•Our multi-asset class expertise. We operate at scale across the private markets asset classes—private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate. We believe this multi-asset class expertise positions us well to compete for, win and execute tailored and complex investment solutions.

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•Our proprietary data and technology. Our proprietary data and technology platforms, including SPI by StepStone (“SPI”), a platform comprising SPI Research, our private markets intelligence database, SPI Reporting, our performance monitoring software, and SPI Pacing, our portfolio cash flow, investment allocation and liquidity forecasting tool provide valuable information advantages, enhance our private markets insight, improve operational efficiency and facilitate portfolio monitoring and reporting functions. These benefits accrue to our clients and to us.

•Our large and experienced team. Since our inception, we have focused on recruiting and retaining the best talent. As of April 1, 2026, 117 partners led the firm, with an average of over 20 years of investment or industry experience. As of March 31, 2026, we had over 1,310 total employees, including approximately 420 investment professionals and approximately 890 employees across our operating team and implementation teams dedicated to sourcing, executing, analyzing and monitoring private markets opportunities.

We believe our scale and position in private markets provide us a distinct competitive advantage with our clients and fund managers. As we grow our client relationships, we are able to allocate additional capital, which allows us to expand our fund manager relationships, resulting in access to additional investment opportunities and data. This, in turn, helps us make better investment decisions and generate better returns, thereby attracting new clients and investment opportunities.

During the year ended March 31, 2026, we reviewed over 4,700 investment opportunities and conducted over 5,700 meetings with fund managers across multiple geographies and all four asset classes. During the last three years ended December 31, 2025, we allocated an average of $75 billion annually in capital to private markets on behalf of our clients, excluding legacy funds, feeder funds and research-only, non-advisory services.

We have a flexible business model whereby many of our clients engage us for solutions across multiple asset classes and investment strategies. Our solutions are typically offered in the following commercial structures:

•Separately managed accounts (“SMAs”). Owned by one client and managed according to their specific preferences, SMAs integrate a combination of primaries, secondaries and co-investments across one or more asset classes. SMAs are meant to address clients’ specific portfolio objectives with respect to return, risk tolerance, diversification and liquidity. SMAs, including directly managed assets, comprised $136 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

•Focused commingled funds. Owned by multiple clients, our focused commingled funds deploy capital in specific asset classes with defined investment strategies. Focused commingled funds comprised $81 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

•Advisory and data services. These services include one or more of the following for our clients: (i) recurring support of portfolio construction and design; (ii) discrete or project-based due diligence, advice and investment recommendations; (iii) detailed review of existing private markets investments, including portfolio-level repositioning recommendations where appropriate; (iv) consulting on investment pacing, policies, strategic plans, and asset allocation to investment boards and committees; and (v) licensed access to our proprietary data and technology platforms, including SPI Research and our other proprietary tools. Advisory relationships comprised $652 billion of our AUA and $16 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

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•Portfolio analytics and reporting. We provide clients with tailored reporting packages, including customized performance benchmarks as well as associated compliance, administrative and tax capabilities. Mandates for portfolio analytics and reporting services typically include licensed access to our proprietary performance monitoring software, SPI Reporting. We provided portfolio analytics and reporting on over $900 billion of client commitments through SPI Reporting as of March 31, 2026.

Our Competitive Strengths

Truly Global Scale with Local Teams

Since our founding, we have invested and continue to invest significant time and resources building a global platform that we believe is well positioned to benefit from the continued growth and globalization of the private markets. Today, we have investment and implementation professionals in 31 cities across 19 countries on five continents.

Our offices are staffed by investment professionals who bring valuable regional insights and language proficiency to enhance existing client relationships and build new client relationships. Each of our offices follows a local staffing model, with local professionals who possess valuable insights, language proficiency and client relationships specific to that market. As of March 31, 2026, approximately 45% of our investment professionals were based outside the United States. We believe our focus on hiring local talent, supported by a deep bench of experienced investment professionals, has been critical in helping us attract a blue-chip, global client base.

Full-Service, Customized Approach to Delivering Solutions

We have significant expertise in customized offerings given our scale, which enables us to maintain a proprietary database across key facets of private markets investing, and our research-focused culture, which enables us to utilize this information advantage to inform our investment decisions and deliver highly customized insights and services to our clients.

As a result, we are able to offer a full suite of investment solutions to our clients, not only by assisting them with building customized private markets portfolios, but also offering other value-add services such as strategic planning and research, portfolio repositioning, and portfolio monitoring and reporting. We believe our value proposition as a full-service firm also helps us strengthen and grow our client relationships. As of March 31, 2026, 34% of our advisory clients also had an AUM relationship with us, and we advised or managed assets in more than one asset class for 34% of our clients, supporting our total capital responsibility growth.

Our focus on offering full-service, customized solutions to our clients is reflected in our business composition. As of March 31, 2026, we had 402 bespoke SMAs and focused commingled funds. For the year ended March 31, 2026, approximately 59% of our management and advisory fees were generated from focused commingled funds, 32% from SMAs, 8% from advisory and data services and 1% from fund reimbursement revenues.

Scale Across Private Markets Asset Classes

We believe our scale across asset classes, deal flow access and dedicated operational resources is increasingly a competitive advantage in private markets solutions. We believe investors are reducing the number of fund managers they invest with, increasingly allocating capital to fund managers that have expertise across a wide range of asset classes within private markets.

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PRIVATE EQUITYREAL ESTATE

$120B(1)
$76B$341B
$20B(1)
$13B$190B

AUMFEAUMAUAAUMFEAUMAUA

180+85+

Investment professionalsInvestment professionals

INFRASTRUCTUREPRIVATE DEBT

$48B(1)
$31B$95B
$46B(1)
$25B$26B

AUMFEAUMAUAAUMFEAUMAUA

75+75+

Investment professionalsInvestment professionals

_____________________________

Note: Amounts may not sum to total due to rounding. Data presented as of March 31, 2026. AUM/AUA reflects final data for the prior period (December 31, 2025), adjusted for net new client account activity through March 31, 2026. Does not include post-period investment valuation or cash activity. Net asset value (“NAV”) data for underlying investments is as of December 31, 2025, as reported by underlying managers up to the business day occurring on or after 115 days following December 31, 2025. When NAV data is not available by the business day occurring on or after 115 days following December 31, 2025, such NAVs are adjusted for cash activity following the last available reported NAV.

(1)Allocation of AUM by asset class is presented by underlying investment asset classification.

Well Positioned to Continue to Serve and Grow Our Diverse and Global Client Base

We believe we are a leading provider of private markets solutions for a broad variety of clients. Our clients include some of the world’s largest public and private defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, as well as prominent endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients. In many instances, existing clients have increased allocations to additional asset classes and commercial structures and deployed capital across our asset management and advisory services businesses.

Our dedicated in-house business development, marketing and client relations teams, comprising over 230 professionals in offices across 16 countries, maintain an active and transparent dialogue with our diverse and global client base. Consistent with our staffing model on the investment side, we ensure local clients are interfacing with business development professionals who have local expertise.

Preeminent Data and Analytics with Proprietary Software

Our data-driven, research-focused approach has been core to our investment philosophy since inception, which we believe is one of our biggest competitive strengths. Our data are organized around our proprietary software systems:

•SPI Research monitors investment opportunities and is used by our investment professionals as an investment decision making tool. As of March 31, 2026, SPI Research contained information on more than 19,000 fund managers, 52,000 funds, 139,000 companies, and 293,000 investments. SPI Research initially augmented our own due diligence, investment and portfolio construction processes. In response to growing industry demand for private markets intelligence, we subsequently developed an interface for direct client access. Through SPI Research, our clients can access detailed, regularly updated information on managers through an intuitive, web-based user interface. Our research professionals utilize this technology to collect and develop qualitative and quantitative perspectives on investment opportunities.

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•SPI Reporting monitors the performance of our clients’ investments and allows users, including our clients, to generate detailed analytics. SPI Reporting is used extensively by our StepStone Portfolio Analytics & Reporting (“SPAR”) team to provide customized portfolio analytics and reporting on the performance of our clients’ investments.

We also have a number of additional proprietary tools that we use and license in service of our clients, including our SPI Pacing tool that enables clients to forecast liquidity needs, our daily valuation engine that facilitates asset management solutions offering periodic subscription or liquidity (such as the mass affluent and defined contribution plan markets), sustainability reporting dashboards that allow our clients, if they so desire, to monitor their portfolio against these non-financial metrics, and a secondary pricing engine that drives operating leverage in our evaluation of larger and more complex transactions. The combination of SPI Research, SPI Reporting, and our other tools offers an end-to-end software technology and data solution that delivers significantly more information than most private markets investors have available, providing us with a meaningful advantage in our investment, due diligence and client relations efforts. Data science within private markets has historically been difficult due to the lack of standardization and the labor-intensive process of collecting and processing information. We have a dedicated Data Analytics & Technology Solutions (“DATS”) team, which manages and continues to develop our SPI Research and SPI Reporting platforms (and our additional proprietary tools built on these platforms) and supports our efforts to be a market leader in an area that is essential to evaluating private markets.

Investment Performance Track Record

We believe our track record is a key point of differentiation to our clients. The table below shows our performance summary by asset class as of December 31, 2025. See “Part II, Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Investment Performance” below for more information and explanatory footnotes.

PRIVATE EQUITY BUYOUT*VENTURE CAPITAL & GROWTH EQUITYREAL ESTATEINFRASTRUCTUREPRIVATE DEBT

INVESTMENT STRATEGY(1,3,4)

NET IRR(2)

INVESTMENT STRATEGY(1,3,5)

NET IRR(2)

INVESTMENT STRATEGY(1,3,6)

NET IRR(2)

INVESTMENT STRATEGY(1,3,7)

NET IRR(2)

INVESTMENT STRATEGY(1,3,9)

NET IRR(2)

Primaries14.1%Primaries14.4%Core/core+ fund investments6.8%Core/debt - all strategies6.8%Primaries7.8%

Secondaries17.6%Secondaries14.5%Value-add/opportunistic fund investments7.9%Core+/value-add - primary fund investments10.6%Direct lending7.1%

Co-investments16.2%Directs/co-investments16.2%Real estate debt fund investments5.1%Core+/value-add - secondary fund investments8.1%Opportunistic8.4%

Value-add/opportunistic secondaries & co-investments9.0%
Core+/value-add - co-investments(8)
11.2%Co-investments/secondaries9.5%

Direct lending8.3%

Opportunistic10.9%

Customized managed accounts(*)

We attribute our investment performance track record to numerous factors, including our scale and global reach, our selective investment process powered by our technology and data advantage and our experienced investment teams. Together, these attributes allow us to source highly attractive investment opportunities with a compelling risk-adjusted return profile for our clients’ diverse investment objectives. Our track record has attracted clients seeking exposure to investments with varying risk and return objectives and, in turn, allowed us to successfully and consistently grow assets across our platform.

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Attractive Financial Profile, Supported by Longer Duration Capital Base and Scalable Platform

We have a scalable business model with two integrated revenue streams: management and advisory fees and performance fees. Our superior value proposition to clients, enabled by our global scale, expertise across private markets asset classes and investment strategies, as well as our research and analytics capabilities, drives strong growth in AUM and AUA, which in turn leads to management and advisory fee growth. Investment returns for our clients provide additional revenue opportunities to us in the form of potential performance fees and investment income.

We believe our revenue model has the following important attributes:

Sustainable and recurring management and advisory fees

Our management and advisory fees grew from $285 million in fiscal 2021 to $926 million in fiscal 2026, representing a 27% compounded annual growth rate.

Highly predictable with strong visibility into near-term growth

Our SMAs and focused commingled funds typically have an eight to 18-year maturity at inception, including extensions. As of March 31, 2026, we had $40.1 billion of committed but undeployed fee-earning capital, which we expect to generate management fees when deployed or activated.

Diverse

As of March 31, 2026, we had 528 revenue-generating asset management and advisory programs and therefore are not dependent upon or concentrated in any single investment vehicle or client. For the year ended March 31, 2026, no single client contributed more than 5% of our total management and advisory fees and two commingled funds each contributed more than 5% of our total incentive fees. Our top 10 clients, which contribute to 65 separate mandates and commitments to commingled funds, comprise 17% of our total management and advisory fees.

Upside from performance fees

As of March 31, 2026, we had over 250 investment programs with the potential to earn performance fees, consisting of over $115 billion in committed capital. As of March 31, 2026, our accrued carried interest allocations balance, which we view as a backlog of future carried interest allocation revenue, was $2,037 million. Approximately 59% of current accrued carried interest allocations is from StepStone Fund vintages of 2020 or prior.

Led by a Seasoned Team of Professionals Whose Interests Are Aligned with Clients and Our Stockholders

We believe our biggest asset is our people, and therefore we focus on consistently recruiting the best people, many of whom are proven leaders in their areas of expertise. As of April 1, 2026, 117 partners led the firm, with an average of over 20 years of investment or industry experience. As of March 31, 2026, over two-thirds of our employees have equity interests in us in the form of direct equity interests and/or restricted stock units under our 2020 Long-Term Incentive Plan (“LTIP”), and more than 200 employees are eligible to participate in our carried interest allocations in one or more of the asset classes.

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Strategic Priorities

We aim to leverage our core principles and values that have guided us since inception to continue to grow our business, using the following key strategies:

Continue to Grow with Existing Clients

Expand existing client mandates. As a customized solutions provider, we spend significant time listening to the challenges that our clients face and responding by creating solutions to meet their needs. In addition, we believe our existing clients have a growing asset base and are expanding allocations to private markets investments. As a result, we believe a large portion of our growth will come from existing clients through renewals and expansion of existing mandates with us.

Deploy already raised committed capital. As of March 31, 2026, we had $40.1 billion of capital not yet deployed across our various investment vehicles, which we expect to generate management fees when invested or activated.

Add New Clients Globally

Over the past decade, we have invested in and grown both our in-house and third-party distribution networks. Our local business development professionals lead conversations with potential local clients.

We believe that geographically and economically diverse U.S. and non-U.S. investors will require a highly bespoke approach and will demand high levels of transparency, governance and reporting. We have seen this pattern developing across many geographies, including Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and China, and have positioned ourselves to take advantage of it by establishing local presence with global investment capabilities. We believe our global footprint places us in a favorable position to tap the global pools of demand for private markets.

Continue to Expand Our Distribution Channel for Private Wealth Clients

Many high-net-worth and mass affluent individual investors continue to have difficulty accessing private markets investment opportunities because of a lack of products currently available that satisfy regulatory and structural requirements related to liquidity, transparency and administration. StepStone Private Wealth LLC (“SPW”) is designed to expand access to the private markets for individual investors.

Leverage Our Scale to Enhance Operating Margins

Since inception we have made significant investments in our platform infrastructure through building out our investment and implementation teams across geographies and asset classes and developing technology-enabled solutions. We believe we have scaled the personnel and infrastructure of our business to support significant growth in our client base across our existing investment offerings, positioning us well to continue to drive operating margin improvement.

Monetize Our Data and Analytics Capabilities

In addition to enabling StepStone's asset management and advisory solutions, our proprietary data and technology platform, SPI by StepStone, includes a suite of applications that are made available directly to our clients. We typically deliver these capabilities as part of broader client mandates, and we also monetize certain tools and datasets through standalone licenses and data distribution partnerships.

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SPI Research is our private markets intelligence database, containing the qualitative and quantitative insights from StepStone's approximately 420 investment professionals. We primarily provide SPI Research in connection with asset management and full-service advisory mandates, and we also license it on a standalone basis, including an “advisory-like” arrangement that combines platform access with limited advisory support. This has allowed us to support the private markets activities of clients that are too small to participate in our full-service advisory offerings.

SPI Reporting is used by clients post-investment to monitor the performance and exposures of their private market portfolios. SPI Reporting is typically bundled with SPAR, which is a managed service that gathers, validates, and maintains private markets fund reporting data and related portfolio information that can be resource intensive for clients to administer internally. See “Portfolio Analytics and Reporting—SPI Reporting Platform” below for more information.

SPI Pacing is a portfolio cash flow, investment allocation and liquidity forecasting tool that is used by investors to create customized commitment plans to assist in reaching allocations targets and manage liquidity in private market portfolios.

SPI Benchmarking includes a collection of data products and analytical tools that leverage StepStone's vast proprietary data sourced across its business. These individual data products are available to all market participants, providing better intelligence and transparency across different segments of private markets.

StepStone has also established strategic partnerships with industry leaders in different segments of financial services that have unique data assets and distribution channels. Together with StepStone’s capabilities, these partners help deliver innovative data solutions tailored to private markets stakeholders. Representative data distributions partnerships include agreements with Kroll, FTSE Russell, and PitchBook.

Pursue Accretive Transactions to Complement Our Platform

We may complement our strong organic growth with selective strategic and tactical acquisitions. We intend to remain highly disciplined in our development strategy to help ensure that we are allocating management time and our capital in the most productive areas to fuel growth. Our strategy will continue to focus on opportunities that expand our scale in existing markets, add complementary capabilities, enhance distribution, or provide access to new markets.

Investment Strategies

We offer customized solutions across the global private markets through synergistic investment strategies – primary fund investments, secondary investments, and co-investments. StepStone constructs solutions across all three investment strategies for each asset class – private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate. Being an active investor across all investment strategies provides us with meaningful insights into fund managers, their portfolios, return characteristics and direct investment opportunities.

Primaries

Primaries refer to investments in newly established private markets funds. Primary investments are made during an initial fundraising period in the form of capital commitments, which are called down by the fund from time to time and utilized to finance its investments in portfolio companies during a predefined period. A private markets fund’s return profile typically exhibits a “J-Curve,” undergoing a modest decline in the early portion of the fund’s lifecycle as investment-related expenses and fees accrue prior to the realization of investment gains from portfolio investments, with the trend typically reversing in the later portion of the fund’s lifecycle as portfolio investments are sold and gains from investments are realized and distributed.

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Primaries are generally closed-end funds and only accept new capital commitments during a finite period. Private equity, real estate and infrastructure primary investment funds typically range in duration from 10 to 18 years, including extensions, while private debt primary investment funds typically range in duration from eight to 10 years. Underlying portfolio investments generally have a three to six year range of duration for private equity, with potentially shorter periods for private debt or value-add and opportunistic real estate, and longer for infrastructure. Typically, fund managers will not launch new funds more frequently than every two to four years. Market leaders generally offer multiple primary investment funds each year, but they may not offer funds within a given geography or that pursue a certain strategy in any particular year or in consecutive years. Because of the limited timeframe of opportunity for investment in any given fund, having a well-established relationship with a fund manager is critically important for primary investors.

Our primaries business seeks out, and invests with, leading fund managers across the private markets asset classes. We aim to build top-performing global private markets portfolios through a research-intensive investment approach and strive to identify fund managers with top-quartile performance through active sourcing and in-depth evaluation, complemented by excellent deal execution. We leverage our SPI Research database to track a large cross section of fund managers and funds globally—irrespective of fundraising cycles.

Secondaries

Secondaries refer to investments in existing private markets funds, companies, or assets through the acquisition of an existing interest by one investor from another in a negotiated transaction. In so doing, the buyer will agree to take on future funding obligations in exchange for future returns and distributions. Because secondary investments are generally made when an investment is several years into its life, these investments are viewed as more mature.

Secondaries have historically generated a high risk-adjusted internal rate of return (“IRR”) relative to other strategies in the private markets. This performance is due, in part, to: (1) the lack of a centralized market, (2) imperfect information among buyers and sellers, (3) wide bid spreads, (4) shorter holding periods, (5) fee mitigation and (6) transactions often priced at a discount to fair value. Unlike primary commitments, secondaries offer visibility into a portfolio of known assets and their historical performance, which can mitigate some of the risk normally associated with primaries. We believe these market dynamics will persist, making secondaries an attractive long-term opportunity for sophisticated investors.

Similar to our primaries program, our secondaries program spans all asset classes and leverages our global platform to capitalize on market inefficiencies. We seek to acquire assets through preferential purchase arrangements by proactively sourcing secondary deal flow through our extensive network of relationships with fund managers, clients, intermediaries and other industry participants. We are able to increase the effectiveness of our sourcing efforts by focusing on fund managers managing high quality portfolios that are expected to outperform the market. In addition, we source exclusive deal flow (which we refer to as “advantaged”) by working closely with intermediaries to capture high quality assets that would not be available through auction processes, usually because a fund manager wants to control information flow or client relationships, including by restricting potential buyers to a select group of “pre-approved” replacement clients like our firm.

Our global platform provides for deep market coverage and consistently sources proprietary transaction opportunities. We believe proprietary and advantaged deal flow has been a critical factor in our ability to purchase high quality assets at below market prices.

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Co-investments

Co-investments involve directly acquiring an equity interest or a debt instrument of an operating company, project or property alongside an investment by a fund manager or direct investor that leads the transaction. We participate in co-investments across each of our asset classes. Co-investments are generally structured such that the lead and co-investors collectively hold the same security on the same terms in a controlling equity interest or a debt instrument of the operating company, project or property. Capital committed to a co-investment is typically invested immediately, thereby advancing the timing of expected returns on investment and creating more predictable cash flows for the investor.

We employ a flexible approach to co-investing, which makes us an attractive co-investor for fund managers. Our ability to co-invest and participate on a pre-signing basis helps us expand the number of available opportunities and secure larger co-investment allocations. We have the ability to participate in non-traditional co-investments, such as helping to fund add-on acquisitions when a fund manager has already reached its concentration limits in its fund. This further expands our investment opportunities and differentiates us from other co-investors, thereby leading to future opportunities with fund managers.

Our co-investment program benefits from the access to fund managers we have through our scale and the over 5,700 meetings and calls that we conduct with fund managers on an annual basis. In each of these meetings and calls, we follow a protocol of inquiring about co-investments and monitoring compliance with the protocol through an automated tracking system.

Portfolio Analytics and Reporting

StepStone Portfolio Analytics & Reporting

StepStone's Portfolio Analytics & Reporting service, known as SPAR, is an investment monitoring and reporting solution that provides institutional investors with end-to-end private markets data management, portfolio monitoring, and reporting capabilities. Designed to support informed decision making, SPAR functions as a fully integrated operational partner, combining an experienced global team, rigorous data management processes, and proprietary analytical tools to give clients continuous transparency into their private markets portfolios.

Data Monitoring

At the core of SPAR is a disciplined data monitoring process that captures, validates, and maintains investment data across private markets asset classes. SPAR collects documents from general partners through a centralized intake portal, logs and organizes them using standardized conventions, then processes the data. The data are reconciled against general partner, client, and/or custodian records to ensure accuracy and integrity.

SPI Reporting Platform

Processed data flows directly into SPI Reporting, a web-based monitoring and reporting platform accessible on a continuous basis. The platform tracks over 100 data points per investment, including daily cash flow activity, quarterly valuations, and underlying asset-level detail, and provides interactive dashboards covering capital activity, performance, public and private benchmarking, and portfolio exposures. Users can analyze performance at the investment and underlying asset level by custom attributes, apply data filters, and run grouped or granular reports with export capability. The platform also supports portfolio analytics including return J-curves, cash flow activity over time, multi-period internal rates of return, and time-weighted rates of return. SPI Reporting is integrated with SPI Pacing and SPI Research, allowing clients to manage allocations and access StepStone's broader research platform. The system is developed and maintained by StepStone's in-house DATS team of over 30 engineers.

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Client Service

SPAR's dedicated client service team serves as the primary point of contact for each account, managing onboarding, training, and ongoing support. The team coordinates client and portfolio manager investment monitoring support across StepStone, delivers tailored periodic reporting packages, and handles ad hoc data requests – all subject to quality review prior to delivery. Global coverage spans major regions, ensuring clients receive consistent, timely service regardless of geography.

Investment Risk Management

Given the nature and scale of the business, Investment Committees (“ICs”) and Portfolio and Risk Management Committees (“PRMCs”) have been established for each asset class. Additionally, a Global Allocation Committee (“GAC”) oversees multi-asset class matters, particularly capital markets assumptions, providing a holistic view of risk and portfolio exposure across asset classes and alignment with overall investment objectives and risk management strategies. Each of the PRMCs and ICs provide oversight of portfolio and investment risk, respectively. Our risk management process focuses on risk identification, measurement, treatment/mitigation, monitoring and management/reporting, with particular risk assessments tailored by asset class and individual client.

Responsible Investment

Responsible investment (“RI”) is a core tenet of our investment philosophy. We believe that the integration of RI factors in our investment process can improve long-term, risk-adjusted returns for our clients and stakeholders. We aim to continually improve and evolve our practices. As part of our RI journey, we:

•Became a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (“UNPRI”) in 2013;

•Adopted a Responsible Investment policy in 2014, which is reviewed annually;

•Became a member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”) and its successor the International Sustainability Standards Board;

•Enhanced our governance framework by creating asset class RI workgroups and a dedicated corporate RI Workgroup in 2019;

•Became a member of the GRESB and a founding signatory to the Institutional Limited Partners Association (“ILPA”) Diversity in Action initiative in 2020;

•Implemented a standalone climate policy and incorporated Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”) aligned climate considerations within our investment process and our approach to corporate sustainability reporting in 2022;

•Became a founding financial services member supporting Ownership Works in 2022, a consortium of organizations dedicated to promoting employee ownership programs;

•Implemented a standalone stewardship policy in 2022 reflecting our continued emphasis on stewardship practices in our investments. Accepted as a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code in 2023 and again in 2024;

•Were elected as a representative to the ESG Data Convergence Initiative Steering Committee in 2024 and continue to serve in this role; and

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•Continued to evolve our investment practices by deepening our focus on financially material issues, including physical climate risk, AI and technology governance, and supply chain considerations.

Responsible Investment in the Investment Process

Composed of leaders from across our organization, the Responsible Investment Committee provides oversight and direction for our responsible investment process. Among other things, it reviews RI due diligence within our investment memoranda before they are submitted to the relevant Investment Committee.

Our RI due diligence process is applied in each asset class and strategy and incorporated into the broader business, financial, and operational diligence process — detailing material RI considerations that could drive value creation or risk mitigation.

Primary Investments

For primary investments, we perform a review of each fund manager and fund’s RI policy, implementation and monitoring framework. We evaluate the level of commitment, accountability and leadership engagement across the fund manager. We seek to understand how aligned their RI processes are to established external frameworks and how specific material risks and opportunities are considered, including climate and modern slavery (e.g., forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking). Further, we evaluate their RI monitoring and reporting systems. Where relevant, for impact strategies, we layer on an additional layer of due diligence focused on the quality of the fund manager’s impact practices.

Co-investments

With respect to our co-investments, we complete an RI assessment at both the manager and asset level. We use several tools to complete the latter, including information from the manager and company, along with industry-specific SASB materiality standards, and for specific sectors information from GRESB. Post investment, we monitor the co-investment’s performance focusing on material financial and RI factors. The majority of this monitoring is conducted through an annual questionnaire and regular engagement with the fund manager supplemented by Limited Partner Advisory Committees of which we are a member. In cases where we hold a board or observer seat at the fund, we seek to be active in advocating for material issues as standard agenda items.

Secondaries

With respect to secondary transactions, we utilize primary RI assessments where available, along with an evaluation of the RI risk and opportunities of the key, value-driving assets. Due diligence timelines are often compressed for secondary transactions. As such, our platform creates a significant advantage due to the breadth of information we typically already have on the fund manager in a secondary transaction.

Impact

We have observed that investors globally are increasingly focused on the real-world outcomes of their investment programs, typically referred to as impact investing. We look to work with clients in crafting customized investment programs that target commercial returns while investing in certain impact or thematic investment opportunities such as climate change, nature and biodiversity, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

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Corporate Sustainability

Corporate sustainability considerations are relevant in our operational decision making and internal policies. Our key focus areas are managing our emissions profile and monitoring our supply chain for modern slavery.

Managing Our Emissions Profile

We are focused on the firm’s emissions profile as we seek to maintain carbon neutrality within our operations as a stated firm goal. As such, the following efforts have been undertaken:

•Since 2019, engaged a consultant on an annual basis to conduct a comprehensive carbon footprint measurement and analysis of our operations. Based on this analysis, we have funded several sustainable development projects to offset our carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutral status within our operations;

•Implementing tailored carbon reduction initiatives across our global offices, including recycling protocols, transitioning to electronic tablets during meetings and encouraging a “paperless” approach where practicable. As part of our vendor due diligence process, we have added specific climate-related queries to help us understand and evaluate vendor environmental efforts, such as whether they measure their carbon footprint and have initiatives in place to minimize or offset emissions; and

•Prioritizing selection of highly rated Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) or comparable standard in leasing office space.

Modern Slavery

We have processes in place to address the applicable regulatory obligations in certain jurisdictions where we operate related to modern slavery, which includes forced or compulsory labor, human trafficking, child labor, restrictions on freedom of association, unsafe or unhealthy working conditions, and the use of physical punishment, coercion, or abusive disciplinary practices. Within our vendor due diligence process, we query and evaluate for this topic seeking to identify any substantive supply chain risks. Further, to align with applicable regulations, this topic is also considered within our investment due diligence and monitoring processes.

Our Clients

We believe the value proposition we offer across our asset management, advisory, data, portfolio monitoring and reporting services has resulted in strong relationships with our clients. Our client base includes some of the world’s largest public and private pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, as well as prominent endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients, which include high-net-worth and mass affluent individuals globally. During the year ended March 31, 2026, more than half of our management and advisory fees came from clients based outside of the United States, reflecting the strength and breadth of our relationships within the global investor community.

We believe the stability of our client base, reflecting in part the longer tenor of our SMAs and focused commingled funds, reflects the strength of the long-term client relationships we have developed. We believe we have been successful in expanding relationships with our clients, often expanding from advisory relationships to discretionary asset management relationships. Approximately 34% of our clients engage us for both asset management and advisory services.

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Private Wealth Sector Strategy

We have served defined contribution plans, family offices and private wealth clients for over 10 years, and have more recently expanded to delivering our institutional capabilities to high-net-worth and mass affluent investors. Our platform leverages our deep expertise across private equity (including venture capital), infrastructure, private debt and real estate to develop and distribute innovative products for individual investors, integrating primaries, secondaries and co-investments to create customized product solutions for the private wealth sector. Our solutions include:

•SMAs spanning multiple asset classes and strategies for defined contribution plans with long-term investment objectives;

•private wealth solutions for registered investment advisors, independent broker dealers and wirehouses in the United States and wealth managers internationally;

•registered funds available to mass affluent individual investors in the United States; and

•global distribution of our institutional funds to family office investors and high-net-worth investors.

Our Private Wealth funds offer the following areas of differentiation to potential investors:

•Favorable structure. Our funds are structured to provide 1099 tax reporting instead of K-1s for US investors, a single investment instead of recurring capital calls, and the potential for periodic liquidity.

•Attractive track record and deep knowledge and expertise in private markets. We have extensive experience investing substantial capital in the private markets and have generated attractive risk-adjusted returns.

•Proprietary database and insights. Our proprietary SPI by StepStone system represents one of the industry’s most comprehensive and powerful databases.

•Differentiated access. Given its scale, expertise, and relationships, we have preferred access to top-tier fund managers and proprietary opportunities, including co-investments and secondaries.

Fees and Other Key Contractual Terms

Separately Managed Accounts

The scope of our separate account services and degree of client involvement varies by relationship and policy guidelines, but we typically direct or have substantial participation in the negotiation of account terms, investment policy and strategic planning, pacing and ongoing monitoring and reporting activities. We also provide direct asset management services to clients, providing active fiduciary oversight of assets held by our clients, working with clients to establish investment guidelines aligned with their specific preferences and goals.

Clients seeking a large-scale asset management engagement typically prefer an SMA rather than commitment to a focused commingled fund. SMAs and directly-managed assets represented approximately $136 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

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Focused Commingled Funds

We organize and manage commingled funds that invest in primary, secondary and co-investment funds managed by third-party managers focused in our areas of expertise. Our focused commingled funds invest across a variety of private market strategies, which enables our clients to efficiently participate in these specialized strategies for which they otherwise may not be able to access due to the high minimum investment requirements. Focused commingled funds represented $81 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

Key Terms of SMAs and Focused Commingled Funds

Fees

Management fees from SMAs are generally based on a contractual rate applied to net invested capital, although specific terms vary significantly from client to client and may be based on capital commitment or NAV. Management fees from focused commingled funds are generally based on a contractual rate applied initially to limited partners’ capital commitments, although specific terms vary significantly from fund to fund and may be based on net invested capital or NAV. Management fees often decrease over the life of the contract due to built-in declines in contractual rates and/or as a result of lower net invested capital balances as capital is returned to clients.

Duration and Termination

SMAs and focused commingled funds are typically eight to 18 years in duration, including extensions, but this varies and may be longer or even indefinite. Our SMAs and focused commingled funds are often subject to extension either at our discretion or, in the case of SMAs, with consent of the client, or in the case of focused commingled funds, with consent of the requisite percentage of limited partners or the advisory committee.

The commitment period of our SMAs and our focused commingled funds can typically be suspended upon the occurrence of a key person event. In some cases, the commitment period of our SMAs may be terminated for any reason (typically once per year).

SMAs typically can be terminated by our clients for specified reasons, but specific terms vary significantly from client to client and certain contracts may be terminated for any reason generally with minimal notice. Our focused commingled funds may generally be terminated for specified reasons and for any reason upon the affirmative vote, depending on the fund, of 50% or more of the total limited partner interests entitled to vote.

See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Third-party clients in many StepStone Funds have the right to remove us as the general partner of the relevant fund and to terminate the investment period under certain circumstances, leading to a decrease in our revenues, which could be substantial. In addition, the investment management agreements related to our SMAs and advisory accounts may permit the client to terminate our management of such accounts on short notice.”

Capital Commitments

Clients in our SMAs and focused commingled funds generally make commitments to provide capital at the outset of a fund and deliver capital when called upon by us, as investment opportunities become available and to fund operational expenses and other obligations. The commitments are generally available for investment for three to six years, during what we call the commitment period, though some SMAs provide for annual commitment periods.

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Performance Fees

The performance fees charged by our focused commingled funds are generally referred to as “carried interest” while those charged by our SMAs may be structured as carried interest or incentive fees. Our focused commingled funds and SMAs generally charge performance fees equal to a fixed percentage of net profits, subject to a compounded annual preferred return in respect of secondary investments and co-investments, but may also earn performance fees with respect to primaries as well. In some cases, performance fees are charged with respect to appreciation in NAV in excess of an agreed rate of return.

If, upon the final distribution of any of our focused commingled funds or SMAs from which we earn performance fees, we or our affiliates have received cumulative performance fees in excess of the amount to which we would be entitled from the profits calculated for such investments in the aggregate, or if the clients have not received distributions equal to those to which they are entitled, we or our affiliates will return such part of any performance fees to the clients as is necessary to ensure that they receive the amounts to which they are entitled, less taxes on the performance fees. We refer to these provisions as “clawbacks.”

Advisory and Data Services

Depending on the mandate, advisory and data services may include one or more of the following for our clients: (i) recurring support of portfolio construction and design; (ii) discrete or project-based due diligence, advice, and investment recommendations; (iii) detailed review of existing private markets investments, including portfolio-level repositioning recommendations where appropriate; (iv) consulting on investment pacing, policies, strategic plans, and asset allocation to investment boards and committees; and (v) licensed access to our proprietary data and technology platform, SPI by StepStone. Advisory mandates generally include StepStone’s SPAR service, which is a managed service for monitoring and reporting on private market investments. Our SPAR service typically includes licensed access to SPI Reporting, our proprietary portfolio reporting application that provides investors with customizable performance, exposure, and benchmarking analysis. Our advisory relationships comprised $652 billion of our AUA and $16 billion of our AUM as of March 31, 2026.

Our advisory and data services clients are generally charged annual fixed fees, which vary depending on the services we provide and the volume of capital deployed. We generally do not earn incentive fees on advisory contracts.

Our advisory and data services contracts have various durations ranging from one year to indefinite terms and renew at the option of the client at the end of the stated term. Advisory and data service contracts can typically be terminated by our clients for any reason upon short notice, generally 30 to 90 days. Advisory and data service contracts with governmental pension plans typically are subject to a renewal process involving our submission of information in response to a request for proposal (“RFP”) issued by the client.

Competition

We compete in all aspects of our business with a large number of asset management firms, commercial banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies and other financial institutions. With respect to our focused commingled funds, we primarily compete with the private markets management businesses of a number of large international financial institutions and established local and regional competitors based in the United States, Europe and Asia, including managers offering funds-of-funds, secondary funds and co-investment funds in the private markets. Our principal competition for SMAs is mostly other highly specialized and independent private markets asset management firms. We compete primarily in the advisory services area of the business with firms that are regionally based and with a select number of large consulting firms for whom private markets investments is only one, often small, portion of their overall business. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Industry—The investment management and investment advisory business is intensely competitive.”

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In order to grow our business, we must maintain our existing client base and attract additional clients in advisory services, SMA and focused commingled fund areas of the business. Historically, we have competed principally on the basis of the factors listed below:

•global access to private markets investment opportunities through our size, scale, reputation and strong relationships with fund managers;

•brand recognition and reputation within the investing community;

•performance of investment strategies;

•quality of service and duration of client relationships;

•data and analytics capabilities;

•ability to customize product offerings to client specifications;

•transparent organizational structure;

•ability to provide cost effective and comprehensive range of services and products; and

•clients’ perceptions of our independence and the alignment of our interests with theirs created through our investment in our own products.

The asset management business is intensely competitive, and in addition to the above factors, our ability to continue to compete effectively will depend upon our ability to attract highly qualified investment professionals and retain existing employees. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Our ability to retain our senior leadership team and attract additional qualified professionals is critical to our success.”

Regulatory Environment

Our business is subject to extensive federal and state regulation in the United States. Under these laws and regulations, the SEC and relevant state securities authorities have broad administrative powers, including the power to limit, restrict or prohibit an investment adviser from carrying on its business if it fails to comply with such laws and regulations. Possible sanctions that may be imposed include the suspension of individual employees, limitations on engaging in certain lines of business for specified periods of time, revocation of investment adviser and other registrations, censures and fines. We are also subject to regulatory oversight and requirements in several foreign jurisdictions in which we operate.

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SEC Regulation

The Partnership and certain of our other consolidated subsidiaries are registered as investment advisers with the SEC. Registered investment advisers are subject to the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act, and the rules promulgated thereunder, as well as to examination by the SEC’s staff. The Investment Advisers Act imposes substantive regulation on virtually every aspect of our business and our client relationships. Applicable requirements relate to, among other things, fiduciary duties to clients, engaging in transactions with clients, maintaining an effective compliance program, performance fees, solicitation arrangements, marketing materials and marketing, allocation of investments, conflicts of interest, recordkeeping, reporting and disclosure. The Investment Advisers Act also regulates the assignment of advisory contracts by the investment adviser. The SEC is authorized to institute proceedings and impose sanctions for violations of the Investment Advisers Act, ranging from fines and censures to termination of an investment adviser’s registration. Failure to comply with the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act or the rules and regulations promulgated by the SEC thereunder could have a material adverse effect on our business.

In May 2024, the SEC adopted amendments to Regulation S-P (the privacy regulations applicable to financial institutions, including investment advisers) that expanded the scope of the regulation and mandate notification to clients and customers in the event of certain privacy breaches. We were required to comply with these amendments by December 2025. The amendments include new and operationally challenging notification and timing requirements, as well as expanded obligations relating to oversight of service providers. The SEC has also adopted disclosure rules related to cybersecurity applicable to public companies. In addition, in 2024, FinCEN and the SEC adopted rules that would require investment advisers to establish formal anti-money laundering and customer identification programs and to file suspicious activity reports. On December 31, 2025, FinCEN and the SEC issued a statement delaying the implementation of the rule from January 1, 2026 to January 1, 2028, and are evaluating potential further changes to the rule.

Our SMAs and the majority of our focused commingled funds are not registered under the Investment Company Act because we only form SMAs for, and offer interests in our focused commingled funds to, persons who we reasonably believe to be “qualified purchasers” as defined in the Investment Company Act. However, certain U.S. funds we manage on our private wealth platform are registered investment companies or business development companies under the Investment Company Act (the “Registered Funds”). The Investment Company Act and the rules thereunder contain detailed parameters for the organization and operation of the Registered Funds, including, among other things, their capital structure, investments and transactions. While we exercise broad discretion over the day-to-day management of our Registered Funds, each of them is also subject to significant oversight by a board of trustees, a majority of whom are not “interested persons” as defined under the Investment Company Act. The responsibilities of each board include, among other things, approving our advisory contracts with our Registered Funds on an annual basis, approving certain other service providers, monitoring transactions involving affiliates, and approving certain co-investment transactions. Additionally, the boards appoint a Chief Compliance Officer who meets independently with the independent trustees of our Registered Funds on a quarterly basis or more frequently, as needed. Further, boards’ audit committees are responsible for overseeing the valuation process for each of our Registered Funds and the applicable investment adviser for each of our Registered Funds is required to provide the audit committee with a summary or description of material fair value matters that occurred in the prior quarter and on an annual basis, as well as a written assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of its valuation process. The audit committee for each Registered Fund may escalate any significant valuation issue to the full board. The advisory contracts with each of our Registered Funds may be terminated by the stockholders or trustees of such Registered Funds on not more than 60 days’ notice.

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ERISA-Related Regulation

Some of our investment vehicles are treated as holding “plan assets,” as defined under ERISA, as a result of investments in those vehicles by benefit plan investors. By virtue of its role as investment manager of these funds, we are a “plan fiduciary” under ERISA with respect to such benefit plan investors. ERISA and the Code impose certain duties on persons that are plan fiduciaries under ERISA, prohibiting certain transactions involving benefit plans and “parties in interest” or “disqualified persons” to those plans, and providing for monetary penalties against plan fiduciaries for violations of these prohibitions. With respect to these vehicles, we rely on particular statutory and administrative exemptions from certain ERISA prohibited transactions, which exemptions are highly complex and may in certain circumstances depend on compliance by third parties whom we do not control. Our failure to comply with these various requirements could have a material adverse effect on our business.

In addition, with respect to other investment funds in which benefit plan investors have invested, but which are not treated as holding “plan assets,” we rely on certain rules under ERISA in conducting investment management activities. These rules are sometimes highly complex and may in certain circumstances depend on compliance by third parties that we do not control. If for any reason these rules were to become inapplicable, we could become subject to regulatory action or third-party claims that could have a material adverse effect on our business.

On March 30, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) introduced a proposed rule which, though applicable to the selection of any designated investment alternatives, is expected to facilitate an ability for individuals to allocate a portion of their 401(k) investments in alternative assets, such as private equity and private credit, as well as real estate. Central to the proposal is a process-based “safe harbor,” which grants plan fiduciaries the presumption of fulfilling their duty of prudence under ERISA, provided they “objectively, thoroughly, and analytically” evaluate six specific factors outlined in the rule: performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, performance benchmarks, and complexity. By adhering to this framework when making investment decisions, fiduciaries are presumed to have met ERISA’s prudence standard, thereby helping to mitigate the legal risks often associated with offering alternative investments. The proposed rule, if adopted, is expected to result in greater interest by employers in adding plan investment options with private markets exposure.

AI and Information Technology-Related Regulation

Governmental authorities in the United States and foreign jurisdictions have increased their focus on the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”), proposing, adopting or considering laws and regulations that may require governance, transparency, risk management and other controls in connection with the development or use of AI systems. In the United States, the SEC has established a task force and is evaluating the need for rules and regulations. If enacted, such rules could add to the compliance risks and burdens of using this technology. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act ("EU AI Act"), entered into force on August 1, 2024 and established a legal framework for the development and use of artificial intelligence systems in the European Union. Compliance with such requirements, and the potential for enhanced liability or regulatory enforcement related to AI, could increase our costs and complexity and adversely affect our business.

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Foreign Regulation

We provide investment advisory and other services and raise funds in a number of countries and jurisdictions outside the United States. In a number of these countries and jurisdictions, which include the UK, European Union (“EU”), the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and certain of the individual member states of each of the EU and EEA (including Ireland and Luxembourg), Switzerland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Chile, our operations, and in some cases our personnel, are subject to regulatory oversight and affirmative requirements. These requirements variously relate to registration, licenses for our personnel, periodic inspections, the provision and filing of periodic reports and obtaining certifications and other approvals. In the EU, we are subject to the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (“AIFMD”), the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive II (“AIFMD II”) and the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive (“UCITS”) under which we are subject to regulatory requirements regarding, among other things, registration for marketing activities, the structure of remuneration for certain of our personnel and reporting obligations. AIFMD II entered into force in the EU on April 15, 2024 and member states have two years to implement the rules into national law, which we expect to occur in 2026. As implemented, AIFMD II may impose additional requirements or restrictions on certain alternative investment funds (including with respect to liquidity management and, for certain strategies, loan origination activities) and could increase the complexity and cost of conducting our business in the EU and EEA. Our EU-based subsidiary, StepStone Group Europe Alternative Investments Limited (“SGEAIL”), engages in regulated activities within the EU. SGEAIL is authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland pursuant to AIFMD and UCITS and authorized to provide MiFID II top up services. Switzerland and individual member states of the EU have imposed additional requirements that may include internal arrangements with respect to risk management, liquidity risks, asset valuations, and the establishment and security of depository and custodial requirements. In certain other jurisdictions, we are subject to various securities and other laws relating to fundraising and other matters. Failure to maintain compliance with applicable laws and regulations could result in regulatory intervention, adversely affect our business or ability to provide services to our clients and harm our reputation.

The European Union Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (“MiFID II”) requires, among other things, all MiFID II investment firms to comply with more prescriptive disclosure, transparency, reporting and recordkeeping obligations and enhanced obligations in relation to the receipt of investment research, best execution, product governance and marketing communications. As we operate firms which are subject to MiFID II (including MiFID II as applicable in the UK), we implemented revised policies and procedures to comply with MiFID II where relevant, including where certain rules have an extraterritorial impact on us. Continuing compliance with MiFID II may result in greater overall complexity, higher compliance, administration and operational costs, and less overall flexibility.

The European Commission has passed a package of legislative proposals reforming the EU anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime, which amongst others, clarifies rules relating to internal policies and procedures, introduces more granular client due diligence requirements, clarifies reliance on outsourcing and harmonizes suspicious activity reporting. The legislation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on June 19, 2024 and came into force on June 26, 2024. EU member states have 36 months to transpose the legislation into national law.

Regulation (EU) 2022/2554 on digital operational resilience for the financial sector (“DORA”) establishes a harmonized and comprehensive digital operational resilience framework across the EU financial sector by requiring a wide range of financial entities, including asset managers and investment firms, to manage their information and communication technology (“ICT”) risks in a robust and effective way through internal governance, control and risk frameworks. DORA also requires financial institutions to report major ICT-related incidents to regulatory authorities and undertake digital operational resilience testing. DORA came into force on January 17, 2025.

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Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 sets forth harmonized rules on artificial intelligence (the “EU AI Act”) and establishes a harmonized, risk-based regulatory framework across the European Union for the development, placing on the market, and use of artificial intelligence systems. The EU AI Act applies to providers, deployers, importers, and distributors of AI systems, including entities established outside the EU where AI outputs are used within the Union (extraterritorial effect). It introduces a tiered system of obligations based on risk; prohibiting certain AI practices, while also imposing stringent requirements on high-risk AI systems, including those used in employment and recruitment contexts, such as risk management, data governance, transparency, and human oversight. The EU AI Act aims to ensure that AI systems are safe, transparent, and respect fundamental rights, while supporting innovation and the effective functioning of the EU single market. The Regulation entered into force on August 1, 2024, with phased implementation, including the application of prohibited practices from February 2025 and full application from August 1, 2026. In parallel, the European Commission is progressing the Digital Omnibus IV package, which is expected to streamline and align overlapping obligations across EU digital legislation, including the AI Act, to enhance regulatory coherence and supervisory coordination. The Digital Omnibus IV package purports to extend the deadline for implementation from August 2026 to December 2027, however this remains in trilogue negotiations within the EU.

For more information regarding regulatory risks, see Part I, Item 1A “Risk Factors” of this Form 10-K, including “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Industry—We operate in an industry subject to numerous regulations and any failure to comply with government regulations to which we are subject could adversely affect us” and “—Evolving laws and government regulations could adversely affect us.”

Human Capital

Our People and Culture

Our core beliefs include “People Matter” and “Empowered Team.” We recognize our people are our biggest asset and their enthusiasm, hard work and dedication make everything that we do possible. We emphasize integrity, transparency, collaboration, entrepreneurialism, and respect for all, driving how we interact with one another, our clients and investors, sponsors, vendors and service providers, and the community at large. These values are embraced by StepStone’s team and lead to high satisfaction for employees. We measure employee satisfaction and engagement through a variety of surveys.

As of March 31, 2026, we had over 1,310 employees globally, including approximately 420 investment professionals and approximately 890 employees across our operating team and implementation teams dedicated to sourcing, executing, analyzing and monitoring private markets opportunities. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good and have not experienced interruptions of operations due to labor disagreements.

Talent Acquisition, Development and Retention

StepStone believes that the strength of its team and a positive culture bring tremendous value and are fundamental to our success. Bringing together the highest caliber of available talent with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives allows StepStone to better serve its clients and investors. Our people are our most important asset, and we invest in their success through various professional development programs.

StepStone’s commitment to upholding equal employment is embodied in the three key principles:

•A level playing field – Providing all employees an equal chance to develop and advance professionally within the firm;

•A culture of belonging – Fostering an environment where every colleague is invited to contribute freely; and

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•Continuous improvement – Fostering an environment where data, analysis, and debate drive decision making and raise the level of talent within the firm.

These principles are integrated into: (a) our practices and policies on recruitment, interviewing, assessment and hiring; (b) firm-wide policies and benefits; (c) retention, development, and promotion of talent; as well as (d) our community and partnership outreach and engagement.

StepStone prides itself on growing talent from within, designing well-structured training programs and creating development opportunities for all which are crucial in supporting the firm’s growth. We believe that a strong, performance-oriented culture is the foundation for a stable organization that will attract and retain industry-leading talent. We offer our team members the benefit of a collegial, intellectually challenging environment where they are empowered to exercise their creativity. We also leverage AI to support and enhance our human capital capabilities globally and to enable more efficient, scalable human capital operations. We believe that further AI deployment will drive additional efficiencies which will empower employees to focus on highly strategic value-added contributions.

We have a number of programs and resources to support and offer development to our employees. Our sponsorship program seeks to identify high-potential employees in mid-level roles, and partners them with one of the firm’s partners, who serves as a sponsor, as well as an executive coach, and is intended to support participants in advancing their professional development and leadership skills. Our mentor program provides interested employees with structured access to one of their more senior colleagues who provide guidance and career advice. New employees also have the opportunity to connect with an onboarding mentor to support their integration into the firm. StepStone also recognizes that different developmental outcomes are needed as employees progress throughout their careers, specifically in the transition period from individual contributors to people managers. To help ease this transition, we provide a series of manager workshops, for new and mid-level managers.

Total Rewards

We strive to provide a competitive total rewards package.

Our compensation approach is performance-based and determined by considering a combination of firm and individual performance. Cash compensation, in the forms of base salary, bonus and revenue share, is just one of several core elements of total rewards that we offer our team members. We also offer competitive health and wellness benefits, volunteer time off, and company contributions to employees’ retirement plans. We provide benefits such as paid parental leave, parental leave coaching for managers and employees, paying for travel for newborns and caretakers when the employee has business required travel, paid shipping of breast milk, and wellness rooms for new parents at our offices. As a public company, we are able to diversify our employee ownership by providing equity grants to certain employees. Our LTIP provides us the ability to offer a variety of equity-based awards, and our employee stock purchase plan allows us to offer equity for purchase at an attractive discount to the market price through payroll deductions, in each case, to further incentivize our employees. We also maintain a plan under which certain of our employees are granted equity in certain of our evergreen funds. In addition, we award annually a portion of carried interest allocations earned by us to certain employees.

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Available Information

Our Internet address is www.stepstonegroup.com. Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, are available free of charge as soon as possible after we electronically file them with, or furnish them to, the SEC. You can access our filings with the SEC by visiting www.sec.gov or our website https://shareholders.stepstonegroup.com/shareholder-relations. The information on our website is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part of this annual report on Form 10-K or incorporated into any other filings we make with the SEC.

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