Attribution you can underwrite

Solutions

Common questions

What operators ask before the first call

How long before AI value-creation work pays for itself?

If you're measuring at the portfolio company level, the first automated decision usually shows a measurable baseline shift within the first 100 days — that's the point of starting the measurement early rather than retrofitting it before exit. If you're measuring at the fund level, the honest answer is it depends on hold period and how many portfolio companies you deploy across, which is why we start with one decision in one company before scaling the playbook.

What data do we need before we can start?

For diligence, you need whatever data room access is already standard, plus direct conversations with the target's operations team about how their claimed automation actually works day to day. For portfolio value creation, you need the same operational access an ops partner already has — no special data infrastructure required, since the point is to instrument the baseline as the automation goes live, not analyze historical data that doesn't exist yet.

How do we know an AI claim in a target company is real versus a pitch deck story?

Ask whether the automation is durable without the specific people who built it, whether it's documented well enough for a new hire to maintain, and whether it depends on data the company actually owns versus a vendor relationship that could disappear post-close. A model with no documentation, no fallback process, and no defined owner is a fragility, not an asset, regardless of what it's saved so far.

How do we attribute AI-driven improvement at exit without it looking like a story?

Capture the baseline before the automation goes live, define the metric with the portfolio company's finance function so it survives scrutiny, and keep measuring continuously rather than doing a before/after snapshot near exit. Buyers and their diligence teams are increasingly skeptical of AI attribution claims that appear only in the final data room, so the credibility comes from the paper trail existing from day one, not from the final number.

Should this go through the deal team or the operating partners?

Operating partners, with the deal team involved only at diligence and exit narrative stages — this is portfolio company execution work, not a fund-level technology bet. The firms getting real attribution value treat it as an operations discipline applied consistently across portfolio companies, not a one-off initiative championed by a single deal partner for a single asset.

Perspectives