How is this different from the Fractional Digital VCP?

Digital VCP is single-portco, embedded, with deep weekly operating involvement. Portfolio Advisor is multi-portco, horizontal, anchored at the fund level with lighter per-portco touch. Many funds run both — Portfolio Advisor across the book and Digital VCP inside the one or two portcos where the thesis is most concentrated.

Who pays — the fund or the portcos?

Typically the fund, billed as a management-company expense or an operating-partner equivalent. Some funds allocate a share to specific portcos when work is concentrated there. Either structure is fine.

How much access does each portco get?

Standing async access for the CEO and CTO, plus monthly office hours. Deeper work on a given portco is scoped separately or upgraded into a Digital VCP engagement for that company.

Do you cover add-on diligence inside the retainer?

Usually yes, within the agreed bandwidth. Larger or competitive deals where a fixed-fee Tech DD package makes sense are scoped separately so the fund gets a defensible IC artifact.

Will you actually push portcos toward shared vendors?

Where it makes sense, and never against the portco CEO's judgment. The point is to give the fund leverage on choices that should be common, not to centralize for its own sake.

How is this priced compared to hiring an operating partner?

A fully-loaded technology operating partner runs $400k-$700k all-in. This engagement gives a fund similar horizontal coverage at $216k-$336k annual, with the option to flex up for deal-heavy quarters.

Across the fund

A horizontal technology and growth advisor across the portfolio.

One senior operator working with the fund directly — across multiple portcos at once. Shared playbooks, cross-portco synergies, and an operating-partner-grade lens on technology and growth, at a fraction of the cost of staffing each portco separately.

Scope the fund engagement

From $18,000/month · per fund, not per portco

When it fits

When this engagement makes sense

Your operating team is two people and the portfolio is fifteen companies.
Multiple portcos are asking the same questions about AI, attribution, or vendor selection — and getting different answers.
You want shared playbooks across the fund without forcing every portco to adopt the same vendor.
Cross-portco synergies on data, demand-gen, or technology talent are on the table but no one owns the cross-cut.
Add-on diligence is constant and you want a single technical operator who knows the book.
You want a senior operator at the operating-partner table without the fully-loaded operating-partner cost.

The problem

Funds with five to fifteen portcos run into the same technology and growth questions over and over — pricing, attribution, AI adoption, vendor consolidation, talent benchmarks. Solving them inside each portco one at a time burns money and produces inconsistent answers. The operating team needs a shared lens and a shared playbook across the book, not fifteen independent investigations.

What you get

The deliverables

Cross-portfolio technology and growth lens

A single senior operator embedded in the fund's operating cadence, with working visibility across the named portcos in scope. Tracks themes, surfaces patterns, and brings the playbook from one portco to the next.

Shared playbooks

Reusable playbooks on the recurring questions — AI adoption, attribution, vendor consolidation, hiring benchmarks, security baseline — built once and applied across the book with portco-specific tuning.

Portco-level office hours

Standing async and live access for each portco CEO and CTO in scope. They get a senior operator on call without negotiating a separate retainer for each company.

Synergy and consolidation work

Identify and execute on cross-portco synergies: shared vendors, shared tooling, shared talent pools, intra-portco customer introductions, joint AI infrastructure. Sized to the fund, owned end to end.

Add-on diligence on demand

When a bolt-on or add-on shows up, the same advisor runs the technical read — usually inside the existing engagement scope. No new vendor cycle, no new context-loading.

Quarterly fund-level review

A read across the portfolio on technology, data, AI, and growth maturity. Surfaces risks and opportunities the operating partners can carry into LP communications.

How it works

The engagement

Month 1

Onboard the book

Working sessions with the operating partners, intake with each portco in scope, baseline read on technology and growth posture across the portfolio. First themes surfaced.

Months 2-3

Playbooks and quick wins

First shared playbooks shipped. Cross-portco synergies sized. One or two portcos picked for deeper engagement based on where the value is most concentrated.

Ongoing

Operate as part of the fund

Standing cadence with the operating team. Portco office hours. Add-on diligence as deals come up. Quarterly fund-level review feeding into the LP narrative.

Engagement shapes

How this is priced

Up to 5 portcos

$18,000/month

Fund-level cadence + office hours

Smaller funds or single sector pods inside a larger fund.

6 to 12 portcos

$28,000/month

Fund-level cadence + per-portco office hours + add-on DD

Mid-size lower-mid-market funds with active operating involvement.

Custom

On request

Tailored

Funds with 12+ portcos, multiple sector pods, or a heavy add-on pipeline.

Who it is for

A good fit if

Lower-mid-market PE funds with 5-15 portfolio companies.
Operating partners who are stretched thin and need leverage across the book.
Funds that have rejected the cost of a full-time technology operating partner but need more than ad-hoc consulting.
Independent sponsor groups consolidating a portfolio across a shared thesis.

Who it is not for

Probably not if

—Single-portco situations — the Fractional Digital VCP is the right shape there.
—Mega-funds with a full operating team of CTO/CMO operating partners already in place.
—Funds that want a vendor to manage; this role sits at the operating-partner table.

A recent engagement

One operator across nine portcos. One shared AI playbook. Six months.

A lower-mid-market fund had nine portcos and a two-person operating team. Each portco was independently evaluating AI vendors, each was negotiating its own data tooling, and three were running near-identical demand-gen rebuilds in parallel. A shared playbook across the book consolidated tooling spend, stood up a single AI evaluation framework, and surfaced two intra-portfolio customer relationships that closed inside six months. The operating partners got back the calendar they had been spending on duplicate reviews.

Questions

What buyers ask

Related engagements

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