Operating partners

The AI mandate landed on you.

Most lower-middle-market funds can’t justify a dedicated AI hire, so the mandate folded into your load, on top of the five or more companies you already cover. Every value-creation plan now names AI as a lever; nobody handed you the hours to pull it.

Book the 30-minute framing call How we work

Line-engraved waterfall: hatched blocks step upward, a final green block completing the rise toward one tall outlined column.

The seat math

The seat is real. The hire mostly isn’t.

The industry’s answer is a dedicated AI operating partner. For most funds in this bracket the numbers never work: the people who can do the job expect carry and a portfolio-wide mandate, and the big advisory shops are built for funds ten times up.

At this size the seat works as advisory: senior, individual, retained for the fraction the portfolio needs.

The longer version of the argument: The AI Operating Partner Your Fund Cannot Hire, and What to Do Instead

What the baseline gives your seat

SequenceWhich companies to move on, in what order, and why, with reasoning your deal partners can check.

VerificationAn outside read on the AI progress your companies report, and language that holds up in an LP’s DDQ.

First movesA two-to-four-week first move for each company that’s ready, sized to land in the board deck and the EBITDA bridge.

The “no”Where AI isn’t ready yet, in writing, with the criteria. The part of the roadmap that makes the rest believable.

Case study

One foundation, five working systems

Read the case study

Outcomes on the record

87% lower cost of pipeline

while revenue doubled over the same three years, facilitated by data-enabled digital transformation he drove.

As head of analytics at a publicly-traded tech company

Fundamentally changed the board’s strategy

“provided insights which enabled board level discussions that have fundamentally changed our strategy”

The head of GTM operations, on the analytics build-out he led.

Founder · as VP · ~$1.5B private-equity-owned telecom

The plan the lenders approved

Marshall drove the integration of unified analytics after a substantial acquisition, providing new and critical visibility into the shape of the customer base. Those numbers grounded the five-year plan.

Founder · as VP · ~$1.5B private-equity-owned telecom

FT, The Times

2019 AI research covered by both, and cited by the Bank of England, the European Parliament and the World Economic Forum.

Founder · as co-author · 2019 AI research

One current view of every deal

Empowered CRO to build an automated deal sheet, putting sales leadership on the same page each week.

Stetson VCP client · deep-tech manufacturer · 2026

60 hrs/mo returned to CRO

Enabled Chief Commercial Officer to offload time-consuming workflows, previously consuming 30% of his bandwidth.

Stetson VCP client · deep-tech manufacturer · 2026

Turnaround reduced by 80%

Sales team’s time to provide answers to complex technical queries from prospects was reduced from five days to same-day, while pulling fewer engineering hours into pre-sales.

Stetson VCP client · deep-tech manufacturer · 2026

Synthetic Audiences

Content operations output quality and cadence improved with implementation of proprietary synthetic audience testing against campaigns before go-live.

Stetson VCP client · RudderStack

Sharper investor reporting in a week

The finance lead picked up the method from a twenty-minute walkthrough and delivered a sharper investor update within the week, with less spreadsheet work behind it.

Stetson VCP client · deep-tech manufacturer · 2026

Your three hours

30 min	the framing call
90 min	the working intake
60 min	the playback

The data request goes to an analyst, not to you. Everything except your three hours happens off your calendar. The finished baseline lands within 48 hours of the playback.

After the readout

One company at a time, starting where it pays.

01The baseline names the companies worth moving on first, and the lever at each.

02For each one, the next step is Your Company AI Roadmap: the same read taken inside one company, built with its CEO, owned by its team. Also free, carried in under your sponsorship. The plan survives because the person who has to run it is the person who built it, and the translation work is ours, not another claim on your calendar.

03Where a roadmap calls for building and the company wants it built, that is the work we charge for. Every recommendation comes tagged: where we’d lead, where we’d bring a partner, and where it isn’t us. You keep the sequence, and the wins land in the bridge with your fingerprints on them.

The baseline is free because it is how we choose the clients we build with long-term. It stands on its own; nothing in it requires hiring us. How we work, from baseline to build

Thirty minutes tells us both whether a baseline fits your fund. If it doesn’t, we’ll say so.

Book the 30-minute framing call