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Private Equity
Middle-market sponsors · operating partners · value-creation teams · portfolio companies
Value creation decks all say AI now, and LPs have noticed which ones say it twice. What sponsors actually need: diligence that can tell an AI capability from an AI slide, and portfolio programs that reach EBITDA instead of stopping at a tooling invoice.
Every portco has an AI slide. Almost none has an owner.
EQT built Motherbrain a decade ago. Your portcos don’t need it. They need owners.
The old way
The AI section of the CIM taken on the banker’s word.
Portco AI pilots with no financial owner, quietly burning $250K before dying.
Every portfolio company pays full price for the same lesson.
“What’s our AI plan?” asked at every board meeting, answered at none.
The new way
Data rooms read and stress-tested inside the exclusivity window.
Every initiative carries an impact estimate, a cost band, a named owner.
One playbook; the second company pays a fraction of the first.
A standing answer for the board, with numbers behind it.
EQT has run Motherbrain, its in-house AI platform, inside sourcing and investment decisions for years: proof that AI in private markets works when it’s embedded in the process, not bolted on.
The strategy consultancies have caught up: BCG’s 2025 executive perspectives and EY’s work on AI value creation both land on the same point: the returns are in the portfolio operating model, not in any single tool.
At your size, the same edge looks like this. Mega-funds solve this with in-house teams. A mid-market sponsor solves it with a repeatable playbook and shared senior ownership: diligence that reads the target’s actual data instead of its deck, a 100-day diagnostic per portco, and one fractional leader across companies so the second implementation costs a fraction of the first.
- In diligenceTwo-week AI & data DDOn the deal clock: what’s real in the target’s claims, what the data layer supports post-close, what the first 100 days should build.
- First 100 daysPortco diagnosticA scored use-case portfolio and a 90-day plan, co-owned by the management team that has to execute it.
- Across the portfolioShared leadershipOne fractional retainer, several portcos, metrics the operating partner can put side by side.
Deal clock → first company → the playbook
One playbook. Many companies.
- 01Buy-side AI due diligence on a two-week deal clock: what’s real, what’s rebuildable, what it costs
- 02Portco diagnostics with a scored use-case portfolio and a 90-day plan per company
- 03A portfolio playbook so the second company costs a fraction of the first
- 04Shared fractional AI leadership across several portcos: senior judgment none could hire alone
- 05Exit-ready evidence: the artifacts that make an AI claim diligence-proof