private equity is capital that is invested in private companies. Private companies are those companies whose ownership shares or units are not traded publicly, because the owners want to restrict the number of people who can invest in them.

Venture capital (VC) is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth start up companies.

Venture capital is a subset of private equity. Therefore, all venture capital is private equity, but not all private equity is venture capital