FOR FUNDS AND INDEPENDENT SPONSORS
Deals to underwrite, and companies to run once they close.
Funds and independent sponsors reach the firm at two points. Before the capital is committed, the questions are where the asset comes from and what the technology inside it does to the thesis. Across the hold, the plan has to be executed by someone accountable to the board rather than to a workstream. Each mandate below is hired on its own terms.
WHERE FUNDS COME IN
Four points in a deal, and what each one needs.
What connects these is the seat the work is done from: someone who has been on the operating side of a PE-backed company, not only the advisory side of one.
A mandate and no proprietary flow
The auctions are priced by the time you see them, and the off-market owners do not answer a cold email.
A target whose technology carries the thesis
The model assumes a platform that scales into new customers and new geographies. Nobody on the deal team can say whether it does.
A portfolio company between technology leaders
The seat is open, the hold clock is running, and a search takes months the value creation plan does not have.
An exit where the buyer will run diligence
Whatever a buyer finds gets priced into the offer or held back from it. Finding it first costs less than arguing about it later.
FOUR MANDATES
Start at the one that matches the stage you are at.
For a fund or sponsor with a written mandate
Buy-Side Advisory
Origination against your criteria: sector, size, geography, and timeline. Owners are approached directly, which keeps the process yours rather than a seller's banker's.
- Retained search for proprietary flow, worked outside an auction
- Criteria agreed in writing before any outreach starts
- Screening carried by the firm, so the deal team sees only what fits
For a deal team underwriting an asset
Technology Diligence
The technology, security, data, and AI inside a target read before the capital is committed. Findings are sorted by whether they gate the deal, move the price, threaten the thesis, or create a lever, each with a dollar consequence and a remediation window attached.
- PRISM™ diligence written in board language, on the deal team's clock
- The same operator stays through the first hundred days, so the plan keeps its evidence
- Fractional CTO, CISO, CAIO, or CDO leadership across the hold
For portfolio companies selling into PE
Business Development
A national network of funds, sponsors, and family offices pointed at the accounts a portfolio company needs. Where the buyer is itself a PE-backed operating business, a warm introduction reaches it faster than a sales team working from a list.
- The value proposition through to the warm introduction
- Run for the portfolio company, reported to the sponsor
- Target accounts and buyer criteria agreed before outreach starts
For a fund approaching an exit
Sell-Side Advisory
Process management for the sale of a portfolio company, and the buyer's own diligence run against the asset first, so what would compress the multiple gets fixed while there is still time to fix it.
- A buyer list built for the asset rather than pulled from a database
- Technology and security findings closed before the data room opens
- A written checkpoint at each stage of the process
Each mandate is scoped and engaged on its own. A fund that buys origination is never required to buy the technology read, and most diligence clients arrive with the deal already in hand.
HONEST ANSWERS
Before you send the brief.
- Can we hire one mandate without the others?
- Yes, and most clients do. Origination, diligence, business development, and sell-side work are scoped and priced separately, and nothing in one is contingent on buying another.
- We have an internal operating team. Where does the technology work fit?
- Beside it. An operating partner covering eight companies cannot hold the CTO seat in any of them. The read gives that partner a baseline the portfolio company did not write about itself, and the fractional seats cover the gap between portfolio-company hires.
- Do you publish the mandates you are working?
- No. Live mandates and the companies inside them do not appear on this site, in a newsletter, or in a sample document. Judge the work on the process and the references instead of on a pipeline.
- What size range do you work in?
- Lower middle market to mid-market on both sides: PE-backed companies where technology carries real weight in the thesis, and investors deploying capital in that range.
- We are an independent sponsor without committed capital. Does that change anything?
- It changes the sequencing rather than the work. The mandate is written the same way, and the capital partner is named at the point in the process where a seller needs to see one.
Send a brief
Tell us where the deal is, and who is already involved.
A live process, a mandate you have not filled, a target you need read before the investment committee meets, or a portfolio company without a technology leader. You get a straight answer on which mandate fits and what the first piece of work would be.
Bass Zanjani leads M&A Advisory. Sujit Maharana leads Technology & AI. A brief goes to whichever of them it concerns.