About the Client

Investing in the Future of Market Leaders 

This private equity firm is on a mission to provide private capital to innovative leaders in sports, technology, and media to accelerate growth and create long-lasting value. By supporting its portfolio of companies with resources, talent, and strategic guidance, it enables companies to become larger and more efficient market leaders. 

The Situation

Managing the Workload for High-Stakes Deals 

Private equity dealmaking in 2022 continues at a steady pace after a record high in 2021, with deal value soaring to $987 billion, doubling the already high total of $474 billion in 2020. 

Investment in the technology sector is a key driver of the deal volume, fueled partly by digital adoption trends during the pandemic. It reflects how private equity firms are investing in industries that build more diverse and sustainable business portfolios that create value. 

As this private equity firm focused mainly on technology deals, keeping up with the volume of work was becoming difficult. It realized its full-time employees didn't have the bandwidth to successfully support innovative investments. So the private equity firm decided to engage an outside resource to ensure future investments were thoroughly analyzed and recommended. 

The Solution

Finding the Extension of the Investment Banking Team 

The firm decided to move forward with Graphite after learning more about the platform, how it works, and its robust bench of talent with private equity experience. Due to Graphite’s rigorous and thorough interview process to become an independent expert on the platform, the firm knew the caliber of talent would be strong. The firm was confident a candidate from Graphite could handle the meticulousness and efficiency required of the role. 

The private equity firm reached out to a Graphite Account Executive (AE) to discuss the project's scope. Within 48 hours of posting the project, the AE identified 20 candidates with the appropriate experience level. Of the 20 potential candidates, the AE narrowed it down to four and presented them to the firm. 

Using Graphite’s in-app messaging and video conferencing feature, the firm communicated with each candidate before selecting an analyst with extensive investment banking experience. The selected expert was a key member in evaluating, marketing, and executing M&A and capital raising transactions, working on 20+ live transactions with various media and technology clients.

The Result

A Winning Workforce Strategy for the Firm  

After getting onboarded, the expert's first project was to provide advisory support to the private equity partner pursuing an investment in the sports/media landscape. They worked with internal team members to provide investment banking-style analytics work — cutting data, spreading comps, and making pages. 

Since the initial project, the firm has extended its engagement with the expert. As an extension of the team, the expert has gone on to work on various projects, such as multiple market research projects, looking at valuations of comparable companies, making slides, and reviewing and analyzing data. 

And after five months of delivering exceptional results, the expert is still engaged with the client and continues to perform ad-hoc requests based on the business need. Onboarding an independent expert has become a winning strategy for the firm. By having an independent resource available, they created a workforce plan that worked for them and their portfolio of clients. 

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