The average private equity fund now takes roughly 26 months from launch to final close. That’s long enough that relationships alone can only take a firm so far.
“Relationships remain the foundation of fundraising, but they no longer set firms apart. Increasingly, differentiation comes from how effectively firms capture, organize and apply what they know.”
That’s the central finding from the June 2 webinar (watch the replay here) we convened in partnership with Altvia, with senior voices from HarbourVest, StepStone and Access Holdings, on what’s actually separating the GPs pulling ahead in capital formation right now.
Three things stood out:
Strong returns get you in the room. Operations decide what happens next. As performance and relationships converge across competitors, it’s the follow-through that’s increasingly under the microscope.
Every firm has more knowledge than it can use. It’s scattered across inboxes, decks and a handful of people’s memory, and most firms don’t know what that’s actually costing them.
AI doesn’t fix a broken process. It runs it faster. Most firms are still asking the wrong question about it.
Fundraising keeps getting more competitive. Investor expectations keep climbing. The report shows how top firms are changing the way they operate and turning that change into a competitive advantage.